Pacific Footballfish

In 1985, deep-sea fishermen in Monterey Bay, California, hauled up their nets to find a menacing-looking fish with a 6-inch-long globular body, prickly skin, needle-sharp teeth, miniscule eyes, and a strange stalk on its head. This was the same Pacific footballfish (Himantolophus sagamius) we now have in our collections, and one of more than 300 living species of anglerfish (of the order Lophiiformes) found around the world.

The first spine of an anglerfish's dorsal fins, called the illicium, extends outward to end in a fleshy, bioluminescent bulb (or esca), which the fish use to lure prey. Male and female anglerfish differ dramatically in size, with some females measuring up to ten times larger than their male counterparts. The males of some anglerfish species, including the football fish, have evolved into “sexual parasites.” Using well-developed olfactory organs, they find and fuse themselves to females, eventually losing their eyes, internal organs, and everything else but the testes. The male becomes a permanent appendage that draws nutrition from its female host and serves as an easily accessible source of sperm.