The males don’t have a luring apparatus instead, most have large, well-developed eyes and huge nostrils, which help them home in on a species-specific chemical attractant emitted by the females.įor decades, researchers have wondered how this rare phenomenon happens in anglerfish. Their enormous, toothy mouth and expandable stomach enable them to capture and devour prey larger than themselves in a single instantaneous gulp.ĭeep-sea anglerfish males are a fraction of the size of the females - in the most extreme cases, females may be more than 60 times the length and about a half-a-million times as heavy as the males. They lure their prey in the inky-black ocean darkness at depths between 300 and 5,000 meters (980 and 16,400 feet) using a bioluminescent fishing apparatus placed on the tip of the snout - hence the “angler” in their common name. Widder/Ocean Research & Conservation Associationĭeep-sea anglerfishes are found in all oceans around the world, yet the roughly 160 known species are extremely rare. This attachment contributes to the reproductive success of these animals living in the vast space of the deep sea, where females and males otherwise rarely meet. We now see great potential down the road for a better understanding of the problem.”Ī female anglerfish, known as the Black Seadevil ( Melanocetus johnsonii), with a relatively tiny parasitic male attached on her underside. “Just witness the difficulties surrounding organ transplantation in humans. “How is it possible that genetically similar organisms - in this case, members of the same species - accept each other so readily when tissue rejection is the usual and expected result of any such union?” said co-author Ted Pietsch, professor emeritus at the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. The extraordinary reproductive strategy employed by deep-sea anglerfishes has posed an enigma that has persisted for a century, ever since the first attached fishes were discovered by an Icelandic fisheries biologist in 1920. Their findings are published July 30 in Science. Now scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Germany and the University of Washington have figured out why female anglerfishes so readily accept their male mates. In anglerfishes, this unusual phenomenon is called “sexual parasitism” and contributes to the reproductive success of these animals living in the vast space of the deep sea, where females and males otherwise rarely meet. In this way, the male becomes entirely dependent on the female for nutrient supply, like a developing fetus in the womb of a mother or a donated organ in a transplant patient. Tiny dwarfed males become permanently attached to relatively gigantic females, fuse their tissues and then establish a common blood circulation. Ted Pietsch/University of Washingtonĭeep-sea anglerfishes employ an incredible reproductive strategy. Deep-sea anglerfishes such as this are found in all oceans around the world, yet the roughly 160 known species are extremely rare. A female anglerfish, the Spinyhead Seadevil ( Photocorynus spiniceps), with a tiny parasitic male attached to her back.
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