The Hatchetfish
Given the extreme depths to which scientists must go to find these frightful–and tiny–fish, little is known about the hatchetfish. A prime source of worldwide model envy, the morose-looking creatures derive their name from how razor-thin they are, no extreme dieting required.
Anatomically speaking, the hatchetfish’s silver-colored thorax resembles a hatchet’s blade. Its name is somewhat deceiving, though; measuring a mere one to five inches in length, the hatchetfish is hardly imposing, let alone deadly. It’s just, well, pretty terrifying to look at.
The marine hatchet fish is endowed with bioluminescent properties, which allow it to evade predators lurking in the depths below. If you absolutely must see one for yourself, you’ll need to slip on your scuba gear and head to the Pacific, Indian or Atlantic Oceans and swim at least 50 meters below the oceans’ surface, as that’s where the hatchetfish calls home.
The Blobfish
More gelatinous than your grandma’s pudding, the blobfish’s strikingly jiggly appearance has captivated the attention of millions over the past several years. So unmistakable is the finned jello mold that it was deemed the world’s ugliest animal in 2013. Why such a flabby appearance? As the blowfish calls the high water-pressured bottom of the ocean home, its skin has become about as dense as water over time.
You might think that the blobfish’s lack of muscle tissue would prove disadvantageous, but you’d be wrong. Imagine a world in which all you had to do to enjoy a fantastic meal was open your mouth and let gravity do its trick. For the blobfish, such a sweet dream is a daily reality. When it comes time to feast, the blobfish’s lack of density means that it doesn’t have to expend any energy in order to eat. Instead, it simply opens its mouth and floats about, noshing on any sea critters that enter its path. Nice life.
The Fangtooth
Consider the fangtooth fish the underwater equivalent of a supposedly menacing pitbull with a heart of gold. Despite its threatening appearance, the fangtooth is incredibly benign–especially as its poor eyesight means that if the fangtooth wants to make like a predator and hunt, it quite literally has to bump into its prey in order to find it.
The fangtooth’s chompers certainly paint a different portrait, though. An orthodontist’s worst nightmare, the fangtooth has the largest teeth of any fish in the ocean relative to its actual size. Good luck catching a glimpse of the sharp-mouthed animal with your own eyes: the fangtooth resides as far as 16,400 feet beneath the sea. For comparison’s sake, that’s about the length of 55 consecutive American football fields.
The Sea Cucumber
The continued existence of these icky echinoderms is somewhat mind boggling. Lacking a true brain and any semblance of sensory organs, the sea cucumber is endowed with the same mental capacity as the food for which it is named. Nevertheless, the colorful cuke constitutes a vital part of the oceanic ecosystem, as it breaks down detritus and recycles any and all nutrients that come its way.
Unlike the cucumbers we like to put over our eyes and into our salads, the sea cucumber is incredibly flexible due to its collagen levels. For instance, if the sea cucumber needs to wedge itself into a tiny crevice, its collagen will loosen and the sea cucumber will effectively liquify itself to seep into its desired locale. When situations get truly dire, sea cucumbers can also engage in self mutilation by violently contracting their muscles and expelling some of their internal organs out through their anus to ward off predators. Don’t try this at home the next time you have an unwanted guest, though; unlike sea cucumbers, your internal organs won’t grow back.
The Goblin Shark
Deemed by some scientists as a “living fossil” and tragically overshadowed in pop culture by its flashier shark counterparts, the goblin shark leads a relatively mysterious existence deep below the ocean blue. The only extant survivor of a 125 million-year old family of sharks, the goblin is truly unique…and ugly. But apart from its most salient features (re: its long, flattened snout, protruding jaws and claw-like teeth), the goblin is relatively unremarkable.
Most scientists speculate that in the underwater world, the goblin shark plays the role of elderly next-door neighbor. Why? Just like your elderly neighbor, the goblin shark’s general flabbiness conveys the fact that it’s not exactly moving around that much, and further, that it doesn’t even need to in order to survive. Unlike your elderly next-door neighbor, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever see a goblin shark in your lifetime. While they were discovered in the 19th century, goblin sharks are incredibly rare and prefer to confine themselves to the ocean’s lower depths–not the public eye. In fact, when one was brought to an aquarium in Japan a few years ago, it died soon after.
The Flamingo Tongue Snail
Shell collectors of the world, be warned. Though the saturated snail you see above bears a visually striking “shell”, the vibrant patterns aren’t part of the shell itself but rather the mollusk’s living mantle tissue.
Located in the waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean, the flamingo tongue snail feeds on toxic sea fans and yet, much like Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable”, suffers no harm. In fact, the snail only benefits from doing so. While chewing on sea fans, the cunning snail absorbs their venom and–to the chagrin of its potential predators–becomes toxic itself. While the flamingo tongue snail used to be a relatively common sight, its unique exterior has rendered it a popular underwater “souvenir” for scuba divers, which has contributed even more to its novelty status.
The Angler Fish
The angler fish is perhaps one of the most fascinating and bizarre sea creatures known to man. Not only known for its wily predation techniques (re: possessing a spine that grows its own glowing fleshy mass, which the fish wiggles about to lure in other predatory sea creatures that it will ultimately devour), the angler fish’s mating habits are rather unique.
When scientists first discovered the angler, for instance, they noticed that almost all of those observed were female…and that these specimens had what appeared to be some sort of parasitic growth attached to their lower parts.
Turns out that those “parasites” were actually just greatly reduced male angler fish, whose puny size means that the male angler fish’s sole objective in life is to find and mate with a female. Once they do find a female partner, male anglers quickly bite into the female’s skin and thus fuse them together–so much so that all that is discernible of the male angler fish are two globular growths on the female’s skin: its gonads. From this point on, the male’s life literally depends on its female host, as they share a circulatory system. And, well, just about everything else. When the female is ready to mate, the male pays his dues by providing her with sperm on the spot so that she might impregnate herself.
