[Notforprophet]

"It’s pitch dark, so the female leaves out her scent which attracts the males. When the male injects for fertilisation and is attached to the fish, she clamps him and he can’t withdraw. The male it kept there for life and degenerates down to about one-hundredth of the size of the female.”

Sounds like a certain First Lady turned Senator to me. Eew.

NFP

[Notforprophet]

Ping

[Plutarch]

Global warming may have attracted the rare South American species...

Unlikely, unless the fish responds to computer models, the only place global warming exists.

[bedolido]

Great find... another reason to stay out of the water. This is scarey stuff...lol. I knew a woman like that about 32 years ago... I'm still attached to her. I've tried for years to get free... (don't get attached much anymore... lost my fertilization years ago too).

[lawdude]

The icthyological version of the Hillary parasite!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Because angler fish are so sparsely populated throughout the vast millions of cubic miles of ocean, chance mating encounters between males and females would be unlikely. In fact, when deep-sea anglers were first brought up in trawls they puzzled scientists because they were all females. Then someone noticed small "growths" on the female that turned out to be males. When a tiny male meets a female he bits into her flesh and literally fuses with her body. Like the linking together of web sites on the Internet, the two blood supplies also fuse together so that the male obtains nutrients and oxygen from the female. Without any need for most of his organ systems, such as eyes and digestive organs, the male's body degenerates into essentially a pair of sperm-producing testicles. Thus the female essentially becomes a hermaphrodite with up to six or more of these tiny male parasites attached to various parts of her body. Although functionally bisexual, the eggs and sperm come from genetically distinct parents, thus providing vital genetic variability through meiosis and genetic recombination. As a functional hermaphrodite she can have sex any time or place, without worrying about meeting a male in the dark abyss of the ocean. Clinging to her body like minute, blood-sucking parasites, the males have little interaction with the female, except to fertilize her eggs with sperm. This fascinating story (and many others) are nicely explained in a pictorial book entitled The Mating Game by Robert Burton (Crown Publishers, New York, 1976).

Sounds like a few troglodites I have known. And clintoon.

[rwfok]

Sounds like a certain First Lady turned Senator...



I can see the resemblance.

[harpseal]

Sounds like a certain First Lady turned Senator to me. Eew.

Please the fish is much better looking.

[Registered]

I want one of these babies in my fish tank!

[Blood of Tyrants]

An interesting question is why doesn't the female's body reject the tissue of the male as it would a foreign object.

[JennysCool]

trawler skipper Sean Conneely

Shocking. Positively shocking!

[Kenton]

The bulbous black fish traps males for mating and they stay attached for the rest of their lives.

My wife did the same thing.

[lilylangtree]

"STRANGE-LOOKING marine species"

Actually, it's the RAT party taking off their human disguises.

[Dacus943]

"the male's body degenerates into essentially a pair of sperm-producing testicles"

Yea...!!! I can still remember the 70's, 80's, and early 1990's.

[tbpiper]

traps males for mating and they stay attached for the rest of their lives.

Expect freeper feeding frenzy or sucha a rich line.

[tbpiper]

traps males for mating and they stay attached for the rest of their lives.

Expect freeper feeding frenzy or sucha a rich line.

[martin_fierro]

I thought I read somewhere that the "Alien" character was based on an insect, not a fish.

Oh well.

[Jay D. Dyson]

A STRANGE-LOOKING marine species which provided the inspiration for blockbuster Alien films

Funny, I always thought it was H.R. Giger's style of art that was the inspiration for the Alien. I don't recall him ever referring to the fish as his inspiration when he created the Alien.

-Jay

[Seeking the truth]

And to think that mankind evolved from such a creature! It's true, its evolutionary fact. This creature later developed legs & lungs and stuff, started to walk on land.

Today, she is know as the Hildabeast!

[chimera]

Very fascinating story. The Lord sure makes some interesting creatures. But, He made them all and I guess they all have their place. This one just looks a little stranger than most.

OTOH, I was watching the fireflies gathering in the evening yesterday out in the yard. The kind of mind that could conceive a lightning bug...

[StriperSniper]

The fish, hunted by deep sea anglers in warm waters,

Never heard about them being targeted by anyone besides scientists. I think that line was just a way to work "warm waters" in.

Why would I think that? Well, at the up to three miles deep that these fish live at, the water tempature is always cold all over the globe.

The dead fish probably drifted up on the Gulf Stream if it came from southern waters.