‘I’ve never seen anything like it’: Scientists astonished by video of deep-sea anglerfish mating

Footage is first time mating has been captured

Deep-sea anglerfish are among the most startling species in the oceans – with their bioluminescent lures dangling ahead of their bristling jaws.

They live at depths of up to a kilometre below the surface where no light can reach them, and as a result very few live specimens have ever been seen or recorded.

However, astonishing new video taken in deep waters around Portugal’s Azores islands shows a female deep-sea anglerfish in all her electro-terror splendour, and also shows a tiny male fixed to the underside of her body as they mate.

The video shows her drifting gently in the gloom, conserving energy while long whisker-like tendrils glowing with bioluminescent lights fan out into the darkness around her.

Beneath her is her tiny mate: a dwarf male which is permanently fused to her as a living sperm provider.

Despite his permanent attachment to the much larger female, the male remains somewhat independent, able to rotate his body in almost any direction.

“I’ve been studying these [animals] for most of my life and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ted Pietsch, a deep-sea fish researcher at the University of Washington told ScienceMag.org.

It is the first time mating between deep-sea anglerfish has been captured.

“So you can see how rare and important this discovery is,” Professor Pietsch said. “It was really a shocker for me.”

The video was taken at 800 metres below the surface by husband and wife team Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen in their submersible craft. They were reportedly about to surface when they spotted an “unusual shape” glide past, and followed the 16cm-long fish for 25 minutes.

When they surfaced they sent the video to Professor Pietsch who identified the exact species as Caulophryne jordani, known as the fanfin angler.

He remarked on the fish’s “gracefulness”, and said of the long glowing filaments around it: “Any prey item touching one of those would cause the angler to turn and gobble up that particular animal.”