Sliced: The Fish That Fishes

More than a mile beneath the ocean’s surface there is no sunlight, but the darkness does not reign undisturbed: Anglerfish and other bioluminescent animals cast an ominous glow in the sea’s deepest reaches. They live in water that hovers just above freezing and that exerts pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch. The mysterious and bizarre-looking anglerfish, which bear names like triplewart sea devil and wolf-trap anglerfish, sport remarkable adaptations that allow them to thrive where shallow-water fish would instantly perish. Although anglerfish are notoriously difficult to collect and study, scientists are steadily learning more about their biology and their evolutionary origins. Earlier this year an analysis of mitochondrial DNA conducted by researchers in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan estimated that the first anglerfish appeared about 160 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, and quickly diversified as they spread into habitats ranging from shallow waters to the ...