Angler

• The first ray of its dorsal fin has become a rod with a fleshy lure at the tip, the illicium, which it waves to mimic a small animal.
• It engulfs its prey by opening its mouth all at once: the water rushes in so fast that it drags the prey inside before it can react.
• It can swallow prey almost as large as itself, and diving seabirds have been found in its stomach.
• It fishes with a lure, like the deep-sea anglerfish: the first dorsal ray is modified into a rod with a fleshy appendage that it waves to attract prey.
• Its mouth is enormous, spanning almost the full width of the head, with inward-curving teeth. It can swallow prey close to its own size, including seabirds.
• The strike lasts milliseconds: it opens its mouth and the suction drags the prey in before it can react.
• It hardly swims at all: it moves across the bottom propped on its pectoral fins, which are highly muscular and jointed.
• The eggs are laid in a floating gelatinous sheet that can be several metres long and contain more than a million eggs.
• It is a commercially valuable food fish of which only the tail is used, because the head accounts for most of the animal's weight.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat & environment

Sand, gravel and mud bottoms of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, from 20 to 1,000 m

Sexual maturity

4.5 years

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophius_piscatorius