VIDEO: Anglerfish Caught ‘With Their Pants Down’ for the First Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=anDIlMVgNwk

Anglerfish are not the most beautiful creatures. With their enormous heads, bulging eyes, fangs, and long, glowing tendrils resembling cat whiskers, they look more like space monsters than something that inhabits the tranquil blue of the sea.

Thanks to Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen, wildlife filmmakers, the world can see for the first time the bizarre mating ritual of anglerfish, Caulophryne jordani, reports Cnet.

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The married couple of documentarians traveled in August 2016 near the Portuguese Azores on behalf of the Rebikoff-Niggeler research foundation when they filmed a video at a depth of about 800 meters, which was released to the public on Thursday.

The footage shows a male and female anglerfish in an act that biologists call “sexual parasitism.” The male bites onto the female’s abdomen and permanently attaches to her. The male thus receives nutrients from the female while the female receives sperm during spawning. The Jakobsens sent the footage to Ted Pietsch, emeritus professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Since most of what science knows about anglerfish comes from dead specimens, this video is quite a discovery, Pietsch said after viewing the footage.

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– I have studied these animals for most of my life and have never seen anything like this, Pietsch told Science Magazine. You can see how rare and significant this discovery is. I was truly shocked, he said.

The unusual footage is an unexpected gift to scientists and enthusiasts who have never had the opportunity to see anglerfish ‘in action.’