A deep-sea creature with teeth like pointed shards of glass and a ‘light-bulb’ antennae dangling from its head was found dead on the shore of Oregon.
Visitors to Cannon Beach spotted the lifeless body of a midnight black fish in the white sands this month.
The Seaside Aquarium confirmed the sighting was an angler fish, called a Pacific football fish, which lives in complete darkness at 2,000 to 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.
This is only the 32nd time humans have laid eyes on the creature and it is believed to be the first time one has been found dead in Oregon.
Visitors to Cannon Beach spotted the lifeless body of a midnight black fish with a large mouth lined with sharp teeth lying in the white sands
‘While a handful of football fish have been recorded in New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Hawaii, Ecuador, Chile, and California this is the first one reported on the Oregon Coast to our knowledge,’ the aquarium shared in a Facebook post.
‘Little is known about their life history but what is known is unusually fascinating.’
Pacific Football fish are one of more than 200 species of anglerfish, a family of bony fish.
They possess a lifeless gaze through completely black eyes attached to the sides of their flat head.
What makes anglerfish unique is a dangling bioluminescent protrusion that juts from their face to hunt prey.
What makes anglerfish unique is a dangling bioluminescent protrusion that juts from their face to hunt prey
The tip glows through bioluminescence, produced by symbiotic bacteria, which acts as a fishing pole to lure prey close enough to the fish’s mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth – but the tentacle is only featured on females.
And the creature is capable of sucking in prey as large as its own body.
‘Food at the depths that these guys peruse can be very sparse, so football fish are not picky eaters,’ stated the Seaside Aquarium.
‘They eat anything that can fit into their mouths. Only females actively hunt as the males are actually more like parasites.
Pacific Football Fish are one of more than 200 species of anglerfish, a family of bony fish. They possess a lifeless gaze through completely black eyes attached to the sides of their flat head.
The aquarium continued to explain that males are 10 times smaller than females and search for a mate to help it survive.
‘[Males] lose their eyes and internal organs, getting all their nutrients from their female partners,’ reads the Facebook post.
‘In return, they provide females with a steady source of sperm. How the males find the females in the pitch dark is still unknown.’
In 2018, scientists captured footage of live anglerfish mating for the first time, according to a report in Science Magazine.
Before then, anglerfish mating pairs had reportedly only been observed among dead specimens caught in nets.
The eerie footage showed the female’s glowing filaments extending around her body as the tiny male clung to her.
The footage was captured at a depth of 2,600 feet off Portugal’s São Jorge Island by husband and wife deep-sea explorers Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen using a remotely operated vehicle.
The permanent attachment of males to females represents what the scientists call a form of ‘anatomical joining,’ unknown in humans except for rare genetically identical twins.
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