Gallery: 7 of the Ocean's Strangest Creatures, Including a Fish With a Flashlight
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The horned shark lays beautiful spiral eggs that look a lot like grenades, except they’re more about making life than taking it. Their shape helps them get lodged in kelp and whatnot. Depending on the species, sharks can actually both lay eggs and give live birth. And get this: sand tiger sharks will actually [eat their siblings](http://news.discovery.com/animals/sharks/why-shark-exmbryos-eat-each-other-130501.htm) in the womb, ensuring that only the fittest actually make it into the world.
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED02angler-fish-lure
Ah, the lure of the mysterious [deep-sea anglerfish](https://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-anglerfish/). Females will dangle this bioluminescent structure near their mouths to attract prey. But that’s not all the lure is good for. Each species has its own special strobe to attract males, which are positively tiny compared to the females. When they meet up, the male bites onto the female and fuses to her. He’ll live the rest of his life like this, releasing sperm whenever she beckons.
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The flashlight fish looks perfectly normal…
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...until you reach into a pocket under its eye to pull out its lantern. That tissue is packed with bioluminescent bacteria, and by flipping it up and down, the fish can turn its flashlight on and off. Down in the deep sea, it uses the lantern to spot prey. Like a lot of species in the deep, flashlight fish undertake a vertical migration every day, hanging out in the darkness of the depths by day, and heading to the surface at night to feed.
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Up until the 20th century, the coelacanth was known only from fossils dating back to the dinosaurs. Not surprisingly, it was considered extinct, that is until a living coelacanth was found off the coast of South Africa in 1938. So where were they all that time? [The answer might be](http://australianmuseum.net.au/Coelacanth-Latimeria-chalumnae-Smith-1939) that they began hanging out in spots less conducive to fossilization, like rocky caves, as opposed to mud, which is great for fossilization.
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Here’s a fun fact: Moray eels have an extra set of jaws that come out of their throat to grab prey, just like in *Alien*. Why exactly? Well, morays hunt in reefs, squeezing into tight spaces. While many fish hunt by suction, rapidly opening their mouths to vacuum up prey, the moray is so skinny that its mouth isn’t big enough to do this. So voila, the evolution of horrifying chompers.
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It sure looks like a shark, but the sawfish is actually a kind of ray. Though just like sharks, the sawfish can detect the [tiny bits of electricity](http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/wildlife-library/amphibians-reptiles-and-fish/sawfish.aspx) given off by its prey, which is often hiding in the seafloor. When it gets a lead on something, it’ll flail that weird schnoz, impaling or even slicing its prey in two.
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The infamous toadfish, responsible for an investigation in the seaside town of Sausalito, north of San Francisco. To attract females, males vibrate their swim bladders to make an incredibly loud and irritating noise. "It's like that scene in every crummy war movie you ever saw where all the B-29's are flying together in formation,” the Academy’s John McCosker [told the *New York Times*](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/26/us/sausalito-journal-voice-of-the-turtle-no-toadfish-love-song.htm...) in 1989. Not much we can do about horny fish, though.
