The angler fish is an amazing creation of nature. Deep sea anglerfish Deep sea anglerfish size

Angler - predatory fish detachment of anglerfishes. Name " angler” this species was obtained due to a very unattractive appearance. The fish is edible. The meat is white, dense, without bones. Especially popular "monkfish" in France.

Whatever they are called - and sea ​​devils, and sea ​​scorpions, and anglerfish, and European anglerfish. However, there are also several varieties of this miracle fish. And in terms of originality of appearance, each of the species is not inferior to each other. People have never seen devils, but the sea monsters that have risen from the depths resemble creatures from the underworld.

It is worth saying that in aquatic life there is another monkfish - a mollusk, but now we will talk about a representative of ray-finned fish.

In fact, it's just a sea fish - a predatory fish with an amazing, unlike anything appearance. These fish belong to the ray-finned fish, to the anglerfish order, to the anglerfish family, to the anglerfish genus. Now in the water depths of the earth there are two varieties of monkfish.

Appearance

At the first glance at this creature, a remarkable organ, the “fishing rod”, immediately catches the eye. The modified fin really resembles a fishing rod with a luminous float. An ugly freak, sometimes reaching up to two meters in length and 30-40 kilograms, he can regulate the glow of his float. But there is nothing supernatural in this. In fact, the float is a kind of skin formation, in the folds of which amazing bacteria live. In the presence of oxygen, which they draw from the anglerfish's blood, they glow. But if the monkfish just had lunch and went to take a nap, he does not need a luminous flashlight, and he blocks the access of blood to the fishing fin, and the float fades before the start of a new hunt.

Whole appearance monkfish betrays a resident in it sea ​​depths. Elongated torso, with unnatural big head, everything is covered with some kind of growths, vaguely resembling either algae, or tree bark, or some kind of knots and snags.

The body length of the monkfish is about 2 meters, while the animal weighs almost 20 kilograms. The body has a slightly flattened shape. In general, the anglerfish is not a very pleasant-looking fish. It is all covered with some kind of leathery outgrowths that look similar to snags and algae. The head is disproportionately large, huge and unpleasant in monkfish and mouth.

Habitat

The habitat of this fish is considered Atlantic Ocean. The angler is found off the coast of Europe, off the coast of Iceland. In addition, monkfish have been found in the waters Baltic Sea, Black Sea, North Sea and the Barents Sea.

The depth at which these fish usually live is from 50 to 200 meters. Most often they are found at the very bottom, because there is nothing more pleasant for a monkfish than just lying quietly on the sand or silt. But it is only at first glance that the angler is idle. In fact, this is one of the ways to hunt. The animal freezes, waiting for its prey. And when she swims by, she grabs her and eats her.

Nutrition

The main food for these fish is other, usually smaller, fish. The monkfish menu consists of katrans, atherins, Kalkans, stingrays and others.

In general, the monkfish is incredibly voracious and therefore boldly rushes even at a seemingly obviously unattainable goal. And in “hungry” moments, a large anglerfish suffering from an almost complete lack of vision rises to the upper water column from the depths and at such moments it is able to attack scuba divers. You can meet such an inhabitant of the deep sea just at the end of summer, after an exhausting hungry spawning, the "devils" go to shallow water, where they intensively eat off until autumn, after which they go to wintering at great depths.

However, compared to sharks, barracudas and octopuses, real monkfish or anglers do not pose an immediate danger to humans. Be that as it may, their terrible teeth are capable of disfiguring the hand of a careless fisherman for life. However, the monkfish does much more damage not to humans, but to other commercial fish species. So, there are legends among fishermen that, having got into a fishing net, during his stay there, he ate the fish that got there.

reproduction

The male and female anglerfish are so different in appearance and size that until some time experts attributed them to different classes. Monkfish breeding is as special a moment as his appearance and way of hunting.

The male anglerfish is several times smaller than the female. To fertilize the eggs, he needs to find his chosen one and not lose sight of her. To do this, the males simply bite into the body of the female. The structure of the teeth does not allow them to free themselves, and they do not want to.

Over time, the female and male grow together, forming a single organism with a common body. Part of the organs and systems of the "husband" atrophies. He no longer needs eyes, fins, stomach. Nutrients come through the blood vessels from the body of the "wife". It remains only for the male to fertilize the eggs at the right time.

They are swept out by the female usually in the spring. Fertility sea ​​anglerfish pretty high. On average, the female spawns up to 1 million eggs. This occurs at a depth, looks like a long (up to 10 m) and wide (up to 0.5 m) ribbon. The female can carry several “husbands” on her body so that they fertilize a large number of eggs at the right time.

It should be noted that the female monkfish can simultaneously lay a clutch, which has about three million eggs. After some time, the eggs are released and they themselves travel in sea waters. Turning into larvae, they live closer to the surface of the water for up to four months, and only reaching a length of 6-8 cm, they sink to the bottom.

Monkfish are not able to compare the feeling of hunger with the size of the prey. There is evidence of anglers catching fish larger than themselves but unable to release them due to the structure of their teeth. It happens that monkfish catches waterfowl and chokes on feathers, which leads to his death.

Monkfish in cooking

Monkfish is suitable both for frying in pieces, and for frying in layers on a grill on a grill, or diced and put on skewers on a grill. Monkfish are boiled and stewed. The fish is especially popular in France, where the meat of its tail is prepared in many ways, for example with blackcurrant jam or sweet yam, and the head of the devil is used for a rich, fatty, spicy soup.

Monkfish meat is highly valued in Japan. Not only meat is eaten, but also liver, fins, skin and stomach.

Chinese monkfish prefer to cook in a wok. Fillet fried in oil rice vinegar and soy sauce, sprinkled with ginger and chili. Then the wok is removed from the fire, the fish is covered with coriander and green onion, mixed, served with rice. Everyone who has tried this dish finds it slightly smoky. All this is a game of spices and features of the wok. The fish is tender and very juicy thanks to the quick frying.

In America, monkfish are cooked mainly on the grill. The fish is cut into pieces along with the skin and vertebral bone. Marinate with salt, olive oil and rosemary. The oil coats the fish pieces and prevents them from drying out. Served monkfish with grilled vegetables, seasoned lemon juice and olive oil.

In the same America, they cook carrot puree with monkfish fillet meatballs. Carrots are boiled until soft, then stewed in heavy cream, chopped with the addition of coriander and salt. Monkfish fillets are crushed, mixed with salt and spices, meatballs the size of a walnut are formed, and steamed. Puree is served in deep bowls, with a dozen meatballs in each and sprinkled with fresh herbs.

In Korea, monkfish are used to make the national dish Hye and cook a sweet and spicy soup, to which a lot of vegetables and batter-fried monkfish (fillet) are added. Monkfish meat, seasoned with hot spices, is put in rice dough (pancakes) and fried in in large numbers oils. Serving fish with soy sauce.

In gourmet restaurants in a number of countries, you can find dishes where monkfish fish is presented in the following form. The fish is fried and served with sweet and sour sauce, poached fish with lemon and lemon zest, as well as stewed and served with parsley or spinach sauce with cheese. The fish is fried with chili, smoked paprika and ginger, simmered in white wine, creamy sauce, milk, baked with tomatoes, fried, strung on rosemary sprigs.

Monkfish are baked in the form of a roll. The fillet is laid out in a layer on a film, the filling is placed on top, for example, broccoli, rolled up. The ends of the film are tied, the roll in this form is lowered into water and the fish is boiled for 10 minutes at a temperature not exceeding 86`C. With this method, the fillet remains soft and juicy, but keeps its shape perfectly. The fish is served with a creamy sauce and potato medallions fried in oil.

In the free sale, the monkfish is not often, because. already mentioned above, the fish is under state protection and its catch is limited. Monkfish in non-frozen form can be found in large hypermarkets at a very high price in a certain season or in the market from private sellers (this is in Europe and America). The rest of the time, if they sell fish, it is frozen, but its price is just as high - 20 euros per 1 kg.

The anglerfish belongs to the suborder Ceratioidei, the order Lophiiformes, which includes more than 100 species. It lives in the ocean column at depths from 1.5 to 3 km. Its body is spherical, flattened on the sides. The head is huge, occupying more than half of the total length. The mouth is awesome, with long sharp

teeth. The bare skin is dark in color, spines and plaques are characteristic only for some species. The "fishing rod", which gave the name to the detachment, is the modified first ray of the fin located on the back. It is found only in females.

There was an opinion that angler fish has ugly forms with bulging eyes. The photo shows her after lifting from the depths. In his typical environment she looks completely different. And we are evaluating the consequences of a huge pressure difference (250 atmospheres) in the water column and on the surface.

The deep-sea anglerfish is an amazing creature. Females are hundreds of times larger than males. Females that were caught and removed from sea ​​water, turned out to be in the range from 5 to 100 cm in length, and males - from 1.6 to 5 cm. This is one of the manifestations. The second is illitium, in common people - the fishing rod of females. It is worth noting that it ends with a luminous due to

bioluminescent bacteria "bait". An angler fish is able to “turn it on and off” by feeding a kind of gland with blood. The length of the illium varies from species to species. For some, it can lengthen and shorten, luring the victim directly into the hunter's mouth.

The nutrition of these fish is also amazing. Females eat crustaceans, occasionally mollusks. Their stomach can increase in size at times. There are cases when they swallowed victims much larger than themselves. Such greed led to death, because. the female was choking on her "lunch", but she could not let it out of herself, her long teeth were holding back. Males, given their small size, are also available with chaetognaths.

The anglerfish breeds in spring and summer. Females spawn small eggs, males fertilize them. From a depth, the eggs float to the near-surface layer (up to 200 m), where there is more opportunity to feed. This is where the larvae come in. By the time of metamorphosis, the grown juveniles descend to a depth of 1 km. After the transformation, the angler fish will go to even greater depths, where it will reach puberty and live its characteristic life.

Fish angler - one of the manifestations of diversity natural world. It is no coincidence that a wonderful way of existence that seems to us has been developed over the centuries. Much still remains unknown. Perhaps someday an explanation will be found.

At the bottom of the deep seas and oceans, where the water is icy, the pressure reaches colossal values, and the amount of food is minimal, deep-sea angler fish (lat. Ceratioidei). All their existence a prime example how living organisms can adapt to even the most severe and adverse conditions life.

Deep sea anglers are one of the most amazing marine life living at a depth of one and a half to three kilometers. Business card of these fish is a modified ray dorsal fin, acting as a bait and shaped like a fisherman's fishing rod. It is to this feature of their appearance that angler fish owe their name.

Theodore W. Pietsch

At the end of a fishing rod (illicia), hanging over a huge mouth with sharp needle-like teeth, there is a small skin outgrowth (esca), filled with millions of luminous bacteria. It is in his light, like moths on a flame, that other, small and not very, inhabitants of the ocean floor swim. To enhance the effect produced by the esca, the angler is able to control the brightness and frequency of flashes. To do this, it is enough for him to narrow or expand the blood vessels, regulating the amount of oxygen entering the esca, which “ignites” or vice versa, “extinguishes” the luminous bacteria.

For different types of anglers, the principle of operation and the design of fishing rods can vary - from the simplest, hanging over your head, to more complex ones that can move out of the channel on your back and retract back, leading the future victim right into the mouth.

Anglerfish living on the most great depths(more than 3500 meters), prefer not to waste energy and hunt lying on the bottom, and fishing rods, for greater convenience, are located right in their huge toothy mouth. Due to their dark coloration and rough, warty skin, deep-sea predators are almost invisible on the seabed.

Anglerfish are so voracious that they are ready to eat everything that fits in their toothy mouth. But the problem is that their mouth is much larger than their esophagus, and swallowing prey three times their size is beyond the power of these fish. Spitting out a large prey back will not work either - teeth interfere, and very often such attempts to swallow unbearable prey become the last, unsuccessful, dinner in the life of an angler.

However, the most amazing quality of anglers is the way they reproduce. Males, whose size is ten times smaller than the size of females, voluntarily go to turn from full-fledged individuals into primitive appendages that produce sperm.

Justin Marshall/AFP-Getty Images

The female is able to carry up to six males, always and everywhere providing herself with a constant supply of sperm, freeing her from the need to regularly search for partners.

Sea devils are a detachment of anglerfish. They live on great depth, can withstand enormous pressure and have an extremely unattractive appearance.

But you knew, for example, how anglers reproduce. For fertilization of eggs to occur, two different fish - male and female monkfish must grow together into one organism.

When the male anglerfish finds a suitable mate, he bites into the female's stomach and tightly clings to her. Over time, two fish merge into a single creature with common skin, common blood vessels, etc. At the same time, some organs atrophy in the male - eyes, fins, etc.

It is precisely because the sea devils live most of their lives in the form of such a monster creature that scientists at first could not find male anglerfish in nature - they only came across females. It turned out that the males (or rather, what was left of them) "hide" inside.

Let's learn more about this fish...

Photo 2.

Are there many people in Russia who can boast that they ate the devil? Apparently there are none at all. And for the average European, this pleasure is quite accessible. The fact is that angler though nasty in appearance, but tasty fish. It also lives off our shores, including in the Barents and even the Black Seas, but here no one specifically catches it.

Angler, or the European anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius), is a large fish up to one and a half meters long, of which two-thirds falls on the head, and weighs up to 20 kilograms. The mouth is outrageously large and studded with a palisade of sharp teeth. Bare skin with a fringe of leathery lobes gives the fish an extremely disgusting appearance. On the head is a fishing rod - the first ray of the dorsal fin shifted forward, from which an appetizing "bait" hangs - a small leathery bulb. For days on end, the devil lies motionless at the bottom and patiently waits for some fish to be tempted by its bait. Then, without delay, it opens its mouth and swallows the prey.

Photo 3.

European angler belongs to the anglerfish family. They live at a depth of 50-200 meters and are considered fairly common inhabitants. coastal waters. Only recently it became known that their close relatives live in the depths of the ocean. They called them deep sea anglers. About 120 species are now known. These amazing creatures are small or very small fish. Females are from 5-10 to 20-40 centimeters long, only the circulation grows up to a meter, and males are dwarfs 14-22 millimeters in size.

The rod is only in females. Often this tackle is clearly divided into a rod, a fishing line and a luminous bait suspended at its end. For each type of anglerfish, the bait has a shape and size peculiar only to these fish, and emits light rays of a strictly defined color. The bait is a sac filled with mucus in which luminous bacteria live. Bacteria need oxygen to emit light. When the angler has lunch and is busy digesting food, he no longer needs light. It can draw attention to the angler large predator. Then the devil pinches the blood vessels of the fishing line and temporarily extinguishes his flashlight.

Photo 4.

The rod above the fish's head points up and forward, and the bait dangles at the very mouth. It is here that gullible game is lured. Gigantaxis have a rod with a line 4 times longer than the fish itself. This allows you to throw the bait far and, teasing the prey, lure it to the mouth that is always ready to gape. Each type of bait attracts a very specific game. This is confirmed by the fact that in the stomachs of some anglers there are constantly found such fish that are rarely caught in deep-sea trawls and are considered very rare.

Everything is unusual in deep-sea anglerfish, especially reproduction. Males and females are so different from each other that they used to be considered different types fish. When the male becomes an adult, he goes in search of a female. The suitors big eyes and an impressive olfactory organ, helping to detect the female. For a tiny fish, finding a bride is a difficult task. Nobody knows how much time they spend on it. It is not surprising that, having found a bride, the male immediately sinks his teeth into her.

Soon, the lips and tongue of the male adhere to the body of the wife, and she takes her husband to be completely dependent. Through the vessels that have grown into his body, the female supplies him with everything he needs. The jaws, intestines and eyes of the male are no longer needed, and they atrophy. In the body of the male, only the heart and gills continue to work, helping to supply oxygen to his body, and even the testes. During breeding, the female spawns, and the male regularly waters it with milk.

Spawning takes place at great depths, but the eggs are lighter than water and float to its surface. This is where the larvae hatch. They feed heavily, grow rapidly and gradually sink until they return to their homeland in their favorite depths.

Photo 6.

Some species of deep-sea anglerfish are considered edible. They are caught in the USA, Africa and East Asia. Especially popular in North America meat from the tail of the anglerfish, which is called Monkfish (monk fish) or Goosefish (goose fish). It tastes like lobster meat. In Japan and Korea, goose fish liver is a delicacy.

The white, dense, boneless and extremely tender meat of this fish can do honor to anyone. festive table. It is suitable both for frying in pieces and open in the shape of a butterfly, or for frying in a grill, cut into cubes and put on skewers, and for boiling and stewing. The monkfish is especially popular in France, where the meat of its tail is prepared in many ways, for example with boiled vegetables, and the head, if one can get it, is used for soup.

Photo 7.

Why monkfish are called "tail fish"
With the head of a monster, the fishermen crack down quickly. Almost one edible tail remains from the fish, which goes on sale peeled from the skin. Therefore, monkfish are often called "tail" fish, whose white, dense, boneless and extremely tender meat can do honor to any festive table. Being a master of disguise, the monkfish, with its dark, often spotted, top body, almost invisible against the background of the bottom of shallow coastal waters, among stones, pebbles and fucus. There he usually likes to lie, watching for prey. On both sides of the head, along the edge of the jaw and lips, fringed shreds of skin hang down, moving in the water like algae. On the sides of the body there are wide fins, and on the back there are thin spines with a spherical thickening at the end, which lure the victim. This sea ​​monster can reach 2 m with a weight of 30-40 kg. Smaller specimens usually go on sale. But even this size monkfish can swallow enough big fish. They say that in the belly of one anglerfish, 65 cm long, they found a young cod 58 cm long. Monkfish are found in many seas, mainly in the Atlantic and in the North Sea, up to Iceland.

Photo 8.

And the monkfish is also called the "frog" - because he knows how to jump
Sometimes during the hunt, the monkfish moves very unusually: it jumps along the bottom, pushing pectoral fins. For this, they called him "the frog."

Photo 9.

In one type of monkfish, the "rod" is drawn into a special channel on the back. The glow of the bubble fish regulates the narrowing or expansion of the walls of the arteries. And in the benthic galatetauma, the “fishing rod” is generally located in the mouth. Another species uses glowing teeth as bait.

For hunting, it is enough for an angler to swim or rest quietly on the sand, from time to time opening his mouth and swallowing too much curious fish. She has no chance to escape: the mouth of the monkfish sucks in water along with everything that swims nearby: mollusks, crustaceans, sometimes even stingrays and sharks. A very hungry angler may catch a waterfowl. However, in this case, he often chokes on feathers and dies.

Photo 10.

Monkfish are not able to compare the size of their prey with the feeling of hunger. Ichthyologists have repeatedly observed cases when a predator caught and bitten a large fish, much larger than himself, but could not let go because of the peculiarities of the structure of the teeth.

Anglerfish breed as unusually as they hunt. Males do not have “rods” at all, and they themselves are quite tiny. While females often reach two meters in length, males rarely exceed 5 millimeters. Each female carries several males: they dig into her, grow together and gradually turn into genitals.

Hungry sea devils are dangerous for scuba divers. They have very poor eyesight, which is compensated by courage and gluttony, so it is better to stay as far away from a hungry anglerfish as possible.

Photo 11.

But where does such a big name come from? According to one version, this fish got it for its extravagant appearance, to put it mildly, even against the general bright and varied background of the inhabitants of the deep sea. A flat body, a huge ugly head with a huge mouth, in some species making up two thirds of the total length, crowned with a palisade of sharp teeth, evokes a feeling of horror. These teeth are able to turn prey into a mess of torn tissues and bones.

Photo 12.

In general, the monkfish is incredibly voracious and therefore boldly rushes even at a seemingly obviously unattainable goal. And in “hungry” moments, a large anglerfish suffering from an almost complete lack of vision rises to the upper water column from the depths and at such moments it is able to attack scuba divers.

You can meet such an inhabitant of the deep sea just at the end of summer, after an exhausting hungry spawning, the "devils" go to shallow water, where they intensively eat off until autumn, after which they go to wintering at great depths.

However, compared to sharks, barracudas and octopuses, real monkfish or anglers do not pose an immediate danger to humans. Be that as it may, their terrible teeth are capable of disfiguring the hand of a careless fisherman for life. However, the monkfish does much more damage not to humans, but to other commercial fish species. So, there are legends among fishermen that, having got into a fishing net, during his stay there, he ate the fish that got there.

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Photo 18.

Let's start with the fact that anglers spend their entire "conscious" life at a depth of about 3000 meters, and the path to sunlight is closed there. In connection with this, they have black or dark brown skin, so they are not visible there at all.

Their appearance can frighten any impressionable person. For such deep sea fish characteristic spherical shape of the body, most which is occupied by the head. In addition to this, she has a huge mouth with eerily razor-sharp teeth. The females are especially terrible.

The size of females can reach 1 meter, and males have a length of no more than 4 cm. Sometimes the difference in size can be incredible. So, on one female 119 cm long and weighing 7 kg, 3 males 16-20 mm in size each and weighing 14-22 mg were found. How they ended up on it, you will learn a little below.

Anglerfish are distinguished by pronounced sexual dimorphism, i.e. females are many times larger than males and are predators. While the males lead a modest lifestyle and feed on the smallest crustaceans, zooplankton and other small things, the females hunt big.

These fish are very voracious. Their stomach can stretch to an incredible size. So the female can swallow a victim many times larger than her size. As a result of such greed, she dies, because she cannot release her because of the peculiar structure of her teeth.

This fish got its name due to the “bait rod”, which is a process on the head of females. Scientists call it Illicium. It was formed from the first ray of the dorsal fin of the fish. And each species is different. For example, in Ceratias holboelli, the process extends and retracts. This predator throws its bait away and with small jerks lures the future dinner right into its mouth. And there the fish remains to open it more and slam it in time.

At the tip of this process is a small pouch that glows in the dark. It is filled with slime with bioluminescent bacteria. By regulating the flow of blood with oxygen to the sac, the fish controls the brightness of the "bulb". In some species, it is located directly in the mouth. This eliminates the need to "catch a fish with a bait." The prey itself swims into the mouth of the predator.