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”
Even Elmo knows what an Angler Fish is. Just check out Elmo’s World Great Outdoors DVD.
Thank you I am doing a project on anglerfish and this is very interesting and helpful.
Just because the Pixar animators say it’s an Angler fish doesn’t make it factual or you an expert. The fish apears to be an Angler fish with some creative liberties taken by the animators. Bottom line is there is no fish that looks exactly like the deep sea terror in Finding Nemo, and this debate will continue to rage on!
I happen to know that the fish in finding Nemo is an angler fish. We recently purchased the DVD and there’s an option to watch the entire movie with commentary which I did, and that particular scene with the fish chasing Nemo, they do mention the name of the fish as an angler fish. So there. From the pixar animators themselves
Look at this scary picture of the angler. It’s the second picture with captions. Read the captions too…it’s nasty!
Hey guys! I love your comments! Can you believe I read all of them?! I think it’s cool how people are trying to stop people from making rude remarks but not only that, but people saying IT IS AN ANGLER FISH or IT IS A VIPERFISH. Come on people…we all have different opinions! Say you believe it is blah blah blah. kk?
Thanks for the comments. They really help.
BOTTOM LINE!!!!!
The fish in Nemo that is in question is BASED on the Angler Fish, but Pixar has taken some liberties on the design. The two defining aspects that the fish is based on the Angler include: 1) The movie says its an Angler (hey, they drew the thing) AND 2) The fish has the tell-tale hanging “light” OVER its mouth (not very viper-like). However, the Pixar people made some “enhancements’ to its Angler fish to make it more intense looking. 1) Added LONG, overlapping sharp teeth, similar to an Viper fish, that overlap (angler does not have very long teeth), 2) Added very LARGE EYES that bulge (not in proportion to the body size of a true angler or viper), and 3) Added an elongated body, with a distinctive, almost lobster-esk look (definitely not the classic tennis ball round body of an angler and not exactly the long, snake-like body of the viper).
THAT’s the BOTTOM LINE! Thanks everyone for an interesting chat and links!
I thought the fish looked pretty creepy so I looked it up and it was just as scary in real life as it is in the movie. Thank you for the info it helped a lot.
P.S.
The movie was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all I would like to thank you for this info, my child was watching Finding Nemo and I also questioned if it was a real fish. Second I would like to make a comment to the rude person who said it was a viperfish it is absolutely incorrect. Not only does it not have a lure, but if you have the dvd of Nemo and go to the scene selection it says it is an angler fish.
Okay dudes and dudets… I was just looking for a picture of “the scary fish on finding nemo” to put on one of my oil paintings for my class and thanks to this web site I found out the name, ANGLER FISH, not viper fish but the viper is pretty scary itself and i am going to use that picture as well as the giant rattail, fangtooth and anglerfish, im glad that all of you had this argument because i was so entertained and found more than what i was looking for and for the record … on the dvd of finding nemo it says it is a angler fish … in the illistrations part or whatever. have a good one and thank you very much
* Thankful