So the other night, my son asks me about this fish he saw in Finding Nemo. Normally I might not share such a tale, because it’s probably only memorable to our family – but the answers found from this innocent question were pretty impressive indeed.
You see, the alleged fish has a light on it’s head and huge fangs. I don’t know about you, but I’d never heard of such a beast. In fact, I thought it sounded like someone had been having a little fun in the animation room. I even made the mistake of mentioning that it might not be completely real!
You can imagine my surprise when I finally found a picture of the fish in question. That’s a freaky fish indeed, and it seems that very little imagination would be necessary to get this fellow looking like a scary fish!
So I looked around some more and found all sorts of information, including this little tidbit that seems to provide all the information you might need (sorry, link died). You see, apparently this vicious beast is the female of the species! And you thought human women were bad! Luckily they only live at depths of 1,600 to 10,000 feet!
The luminous organ on her head actually attracts her prey. She can vibrate the thing, too, presumably to attract prey if they’re blind. The worse part is that the male of the species lives only to bond himself to the body of the female and provide his seed so that the species may continue. He’s also a lot smaller and not quite as strange looking,
I even found a picture of a live one (or a recently live one – about halfway down the page). Strangely enough, this beast is not the ugliest creature in the ocean. No, that honor belongs to the Fangtooth, a fish so bizarre, that he actually has sheaths in his head for his teeth to slide into when his mouth closes (about one-third of the way down the page)!
And that’s not all – don’t skip the main creature feature, more creatures and still more creatures. Pages courtesy of the Norfanz Voyage web site.
Comments
215 responses to “The Angler Fish”
Great info, I had just watch the Nemo movie and i thought that the movie was great. When they said that the fish was an angler fish i looked it up and found this site. Great site. Lots of info and pics. Keep up the good work!
Great information on your web site! I too began my search on this mysterious fish after watching Finding Nemo with my 5 year old daughter.It’s been an interesting and informative search.
My guess is that the fish in the movie is an imaginary cross between a deep sea angler and a viper fish.
I came to this conclusion based on the pictures and information I found on numerous web sites.
Most searches I did told me that the viper fish has photophores on it’s body and from the fin dangling from it’s head. The angler fish only has the photophore from it’s head.
They’re both pretty freaky looking!
I would’ve never believed such a fish existed.
True,none of my links said the Viperfish is a true anglerfish. Several did however state that they had been observed dangling the long “whiplike” dorsal fin in front of their face to attract prey. Watch the movie again, the fish also has photophores along its body. I agree though, the fish in the movie is a cartoonish exaggeration and I’m sure it wasn’t meant to represent an actual fish.
O.K. poeple. Let’s remember that this is a cartoon. Animators will take one or more kinds of things and blend them together to make them look meaner than an original. Such is the case with this “angle-viper fish”. I believe, as someone mentioned before, that the fish in the movie is made up of both angler and viper, or it could have been drawn right from the animator’s head. It doesn’t need to be argued over though, but it is nice to try to recocnize it for the kids.
Olis, those are some really great links. Unfortunately the data within, and even the information you present in your comment, works against your argument that the fish in Nemo is an Angler.
The information mentions the viperfish is bioluminescent, but it also mentions that the photophores are found on the dorsal fin and along the body.
According to Webster’s dictionary, a fin is described as being used in propelling or guiding the body, or even something resembling a fin as a hand or arm. The fish in Nemo clearly had a dangling “lure”, which certainly could not have been used for propulsion, and that no one should mistake for a hand or an arm of any sort.
Still, some very good links. I especially enjoyed your NOVA link, which also includes some images of anglers, clearly illustrating the dangling nature of the lure. Thanks again!
Check out this link.
I think the fish is in fact a Viperfish. Viperfish, like anglerfish, have a “lure”. In the case of the Viperfish it is luminescent just like in the movie. Viperfish also have large eyes and huge needlelike teeth.
More proof.
Quote:
The viperfish, Chauliodus sloani, has such lengthy lower fangs that they don’t even fit in its mouth, but rather project back dangerously close to the eyes. No Chauliodus has ever been photographed in its natural habitat, but a scientist who saw one from the window of his bathyscaph off Portugal reported that it hovered “head upwards, the long axis of its body making an angle of about 45° to the horizontal plane. The whiplike dorsal ray was inclined forwards so that the tip dangled in front of the mouth. Here, surely, is good circumstantial evidence for deep-sea angling.”
And even more.
The picture on this site looks very much like the one in the movie.
Quote:
The viperfish is also bioluminescent, with photophores–light-emitting organs–on its dorsal fin and along its body to lure its prey to it. The fish has been observed hovering in place in the water with its dorsal fin curved around so that its photophore is waving near its mouth, as a means of drawing prey. Because the viperfish’s body is dark blue or black in color, it is thought that other fish can see no part of it other than its lights.
I had to do some digging to find out anything about the “black (fish) that school”. I think these might be the moon fish, but I’m not certain. I put together a separate entry for the full answer, simply because it got a bit unmanageable as a comment. Please let me know what you think!
Thanks for the great site. I needed to research the anglerfish for school and after researching for days I began to give up and think that my teacher was crazy.But finding your site I recieved many intresting facts. Actually there are four types of anglerfishes, the batfish,goosefish,frogfish, and deep sea angler.
And the male lives as a permanent parasite on the female, and is totally dependent on the female for nourishment. Also the angler fish can grow up to 4 feet long. The dark skin of the anglerfish absorbs the light and does not reflect it, so it remains invisible in the blackness. Also I find the rude comments very immature because any information is still helpful even if some is partially incorrect.Thanks again for all the help! Age 12
I like this site a lot. I saw Finding Nemo for the first time this weekend and I thought that fish was pretty amazing.(Yes I’m 15 and still I liked that movie) So I started to look up on it and I came across this site. But just to put my two sense in I believe that it is an Angler Fish in that movie. I agree with Pete. I believe they just tried to make it more scary looking by adding longer sharper teeth. I looked at the picture of the Viperfish and it looks much smaller than the Angler and it’s shaped more like and eel. Sorry I didn’t put any pictures on I don’t know how to. -Keagan
Indeed, I agree with jayseae and pete. The angler fish from finding nemo is indeed a deep- water angler fish that lives on the dark waters of the darkness zone. The teeth in the movie was the teeth of a viper fish. Though, since there are over 200 species of angler fish, I might not be surprised that there is actually an angler fish that looked like the movie and you never know what phenomenon creatures live in that zone.
I am a junior at a University and studying marine biology for my doctrines, and I can guaranteed you that the fish from the movie is an angler fish. The light on the female head does light to attract their preys and the light is full of bacteria. I wish I can show you pictures and proof, but I can’t even insert a link on this text. Does anyone know how to include a link of pictures and information on this exact text?