MOSS LANDING – The black seadevil is named for its baleful ugliness. With that vicious gape, the females can eat fish of a larger size. To lure her prey, she jerks the luminescent orb dangling from the “fishing rod” on her forehead.
The males are tiny in comparison and live shorter lives with one purpose, to find a mate. He bites her gelatinous flesh, living as a parasite and never letting go. Their tissues and blood systems fuse with the females’. Her body feeds him food and oxygen and provides the necessary hormones to survive.
“If they don’t find a female, they drown,” said Ted Pietsch, professor at the University of Washington and expert on the deep-sea anglerfish. “They’re not even properly equipped to eat.”
With simplified bodies, the males lack the same nightmarish fangs and a proper gut.