What Fish Uses Its Own “Light Bulb” To See Underwater?

Deep below the ocean, where sunlight cannot reach and where the water pressure is so great that no person could survive, creatures take on weird shapes and develop strange habits.

One of the weirdest of these creatures is the deep-sea angler, a small black fish with long, sharp teeth. What makes this fish so weird is that it has a kind of “light bulb” with which to make its own light!

Attached to the top of the angler’s body is a thin strand of flesh, up to four inches long, tipped with a ball of flesh that glows in the dark. A chemical reaction in this “light bulb” makes it glow much the same way that a firefly glows. Smaller fish, attracted by the glow, swim close to investigate and are then gobbled up by the hungry angler.

Fish have been caught 27,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, a depth of more than five miles!