New photos of the amazing deepwater Barreleye fish
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Don’t expect to see this one become available from your LFS any time soon, or ever. The deepwater specialist (and staring contest champion) has two large tubular eyes and transparent dome covering it’s vision. It is believed that this fish makes a living by stealing prey that has been pre-caught by giant colonial jellyfish called siphonophores. The elusive pelagic fish was recently documented by the Monterey Bay Research Institute with a level of clarity that has never been seen before. The fish was documented using a remotely operated vehicle in waters off the coast of California at a depth of about half a mile. Although the species had previously been caught and described, this is the first time that the fish’s fluid filled clear cavity was documented in it’s natural habitat. Props go out to Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler for sharing their wonderful footage of thsi fascinating fish with the world. Read on for more photos and video.
I can’t wrap my brain around what this fish really looks like, it keeps feeling like an optical illusion
February 24th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I’m going as that fish for next halloween!
February 24th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I saw this earlier. Glad I came back and clicked for more to see the movie. Great find. I love posts like this.
February 24th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Weird.. Makes me wonder how many more fish will they discover..
February 25th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
[...] white clam of any kind. Yeah we didnt think so. Secondly, is it more likely that a fish would have a transparent viewing dome in it’s head or is it more likely that two similar species of Tridacna clams could hybridize? [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] has been churning out a lot of eye popping videos lately. Hot on the heels of the unbelievable barreleye fish, this video footage from the Davidson Seamount includes many rarely seen deep water corals, [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 4:24 pm