Life In the Shadowy Depths
The fish, Lasiognathus dinema, has a curved appendage that sticks out of the organ at the tip of its "fishing rod," which contains light-producing bacteria. Anglerfish nab meals by using this structure to trick fish that are attracted to the light.
This noodle-like beast, Bathyphysa conifer, was seen off the coast of Angola in 2015 by workers at the oil and gas company BP. The workers were collecting video footage at a depth of about 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) underwater when they spotted what they said reminded them of the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
B. conifer is a siphonophore, a group of marine animals that includes corals and jellyfish.
The fish was seen swimming along a ridge, at a depth of 8,202 feet (2,500 meters), at the Mariana Trench National Monument. This protected area covers 95,216 square miles (246,608 square kilometers) east of the Philippines.
The "ghost fish" has translucent, scale-less skin and strange-looking, colorless eyes.
These pale, leggy creatures are more than 20 times larger than their typical crustacean relatives. The supergiant amphipods (Alicella gigantea) were found 4 miles (6 kilometers) down in the Kermadec Trench, according to the researchers.