March 23, 2018—A mated pair of deep-sea anglerfish has been filmed in the wild for the first time. The species is a fanfin sea devil—
Caulophryne jordani. The larger anglerfish is the female. Its long, flowing spines help it sense the prey that it lures in. When a tiny male finds a mate, it bites on, and stays—a parasite. Their tissues fuse. The male gets nutrients from the female’s blood, and will be at the ready for spawning. No one had ever seen a living pair. Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen made the discovery while surveying diverse sea life of the Azores, a volcanic island chain of Portugal in the mid-Atlantic.
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Deep-Sea Anglerfish Caught Mating in First-of-Its-Kind VideoCREDITS:
Kirsten + Joachim Jakobsen / Rebikoff-Niggeler Foundation
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https://vimeo.com/254476926
Images were taken with the Rebikoff Foundation's LULA1000 manned submersible 800 meters deep in the Azores.