Deep Sea Angler Fish Washes Ashore on California Beach

[Iron Woode]

Ghastly prehistoric deep-sea anglerfish washes ashore on idyllic California beach

Nature's beautiful horror a crafty species

nationalpost.com

With its football-shaped flat, jet-black body, tiny eyes, translucent teeth and — oh yeah — a fleshy phosphorescent bulb dangling in front of its mouth, the Pacific Footballfish is not something you see on the regular. In fact, to see an actual angler fish intact is very rare, so it was a surprise when beachgoer Ben Estes came across this one.


The California Department of Fish & Wildlife is keeping it for research and education after it landed whole, but dead, onto the sunny beach of the Marine Protective Area of Crystal Cove State Park, just north of Laguna Beach and Dana Point last Friday. Dana Point is where the who’s who of celebrities live; no doubt they’ll now think twice about taking a peaceful shoreline walk with their tiny dogs, knowing that nature’s beautiful horrors lurk nearby.

 

[nakedfrog]

Horrific things, those are.

 

[lxskllr]

Looks bigger than I imagined.

 

[WelshBloke]

Looks bigger than I imagined.

Pretty much all those deep sea terrors are less than a foot long.

Apart from oarfish, those are weird bastards.

 

[dank69]

Looks bigger than I imagined.

No banana for scale.

 

[kage69]

Pretty unusual for that to happen, things rrreally deep tend to stay there. Doesn't strike me as something that ends up as bycatch, or that lives where things are caught on line either. Some trip, and doesn't look like anything passing by took an exploratory nibble. Very weird.

Probably a female, bigger ones tend to be. I think that's one of the species where, when a tiny male finds her, he basically gets added to her body as a sperm producing appendage. Ugh.

 

[UsandThem]

Ghastly prehistoric deep-sea anglerfish washes ashore on idyllic California beach

Nature's beautiful horror a crafty species

nationalpost.com

View attachment 44343

I'm not 100% positive since it's been 23+ years now, but that could be my ex fiancé.

 

[Kaido]

Whoever designed that thing was having a bad day at work

 

[FelixDeCat]

If you look at pictures and videos, they look like big toothed heads with fins that swim around thousands of feet below the surface of the water (the deep sea variety).




It looks like some get big too:

 

[lxskllr]

How much light is there at depth? Are there other sources that aren't angler fish? What I'm getting around to is their lure is a clever adaption, but if it's the only source of light, I'd think prey fish would evolve to stay the fuck away from light sources since nothing good will come from it.

 

[WelshBloke]

It looks like some get big too:

View attachment 44375

That looks like a monkfish, those are pretty tasty!

 

[Iron Woode]

How much light is there at depth? Are there other sources that aren't angler fish? What I'm getting around to is their lure is a clever adaption, but if it's the only source of light, I'd think prey fish would evolve to stay the fuck away from light sources since nothing good will come from it.

many organisms produce light in the depths of the ocean. Jellyfish, octopus, fishes and very small creatures as well.

Bioluminescence - Wikipedia

 

[SKORPI0]

 

[Kaido]

View attachment 44387

 

[Baked]

The night is dark and full of terrors. Surprised it didn't get eaten floating up to the surface.

 

[mooncancook]

Someone fished it off the beach after playing Animal Crossing. It's rare and worth 2500 bells.

 

[kage69]

View attachment 44386

No gloves and dipping hands into specimen jars?

This guy has no sense of smell and few friends I'm thinking.