A fishing rod
A spine on its head ends in a bulb of glowing bacteria, which it waggles to draw prey close.
The deep sea
Deep-sea anglerfish
Melanocetus johnsonii
A round, black fish with a huge mouth of needle teeth and a glowing lure on a rod above its head.
- Size
- Females about 15 to 18cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- The deep, dark waters of every ocean
Drifts after you, lure glowing. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Anglerfish
Good to know
Six things about the anglerfish
A huge mouth
Its mouth and stomach stretch so far that it can swallow a fish twice its own size.
A tiny male
The male is only a few centimetres long. His one job is to find a female in the dark.
Teeth that fold
Its long teeth fold inwards to let prey in, then spring back so that it cannot get out.
Blacker than black
Its skin soaks up almost all light, so even its own glow does not give it away.
The black seadevil
This kind is also called the humpback anglerfish, or the black seadevil.
The real thing
Photos of the anglerfish
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Nobody sees a living anglerfish without a deep-sea submersible. Museums such as the Natural History Museum have preserved ones.
How to help
The deep sea is under threat from deep-sea mining and trawling. Support calls to protect it before it is damaged.
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