Free Republic

This bizarre resident of the deep sea is certainly one of the most unique creatures we've ever seen. Imagine traveling through the darkest depths of the ocean around 2,000ft down where everything around you is pitch black. You shine your torch into the gloom and something catches your eye. As it gets closer, you realize that this is no ordinary fish - you can see straight through its head! Meet the barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma) - a creature so bizarre that if there weren't pictures and videos of it you could almost believe that it was something completely made up....

With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes—topped by green, orblike structures—in a picture released today but taken in 2004. The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. The 6-inch (15-centimeter) barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939—but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.