So the other night, my son asks me about this fish he saw in Finding Nemo. Normally I might not share such a tale, because it’s probably only memorable to our family – but the answers found from this innocent question were pretty impressive indeed.
You see, the alleged fish has a light on it’s head and huge fangs. I don’t know about you, but I’d never heard of such a beast. In fact, I thought it sounded like someone had been having a little fun in the animation room. I even made the mistake of mentioning that it might not be completely real!
You can imagine my surprise when I finally found a picture of the fish in question. That’s a freaky fish indeed, and it seems that very little imagination would be necessary to get this fellow looking like a scary fish!
So I looked around some more and found all sorts of information, including this little tidbit that seems to provide all the information you might need (sorry, link died). You see, apparently this vicious beast is the female of the species! And you thought human women were bad! Luckily they only live at depths of 1,600 to 10,000 feet!
The luminous organ on her head actually attracts her prey. She can vibrate the thing, too, presumably to attract prey if they’re blind. The worst part is that the male of the species lives only to bond himself to the body of the female and provide his seed so that the species may continue. He’s also a lot smaller and not quite as strange looking!
Comments
215 responses to “The Angler Fish”
This site rocks!! I have had a good laugh and have come to the conclusion that it is infact the angler fish on Nemo. I am 9yrs old and am doing a project on it.
What kind of Fish is Dori?
I’m a junior and FPHS and I’m making a web quest about diving. On the webpage I’m trying to add some fish pictures, and I was interested in knowing what kind of fish Dori was from Finding Nemo.
interesting site, I will be looking more into it as soon as my schedule permits. Like everyone else, my wife and I were wondering what kind of fish (angler fish) that was in “finding nemo” at first I thought it was a hatchet fish, but that was just a guess. The way I found the the name of the fish was actually interesting. I am sitting here watching an “Elmo” video with my daughter, and one of their skits is about fish and they did a skit with the angler fish. So I did a search on yahoo and found your site. Like I said, I will be visiting again soon when time permits. Thanks for the interesting info.
Hum, just came across this site and couldn’t be bothered to read through it all, but I thought I may just add a few comments. Unlike most people, I did not become fascinated with the anglerfish after watching this movie – I was fascinated with them since I first learned about them when I was about 10 years old, watching them on the Discovery Channel. I am far from my younger years now, and do research on high-tech vessels that trawl the deep seas. I have mostly anglerfish in my own collection (yes, dead, in forma.), but I have about 4 specimens of viperfish for my own enjoyment. They are not of the anglerfish family, but are equally ‘freaky’ looking. They have more elongate bodies, while anglerfish are -mostly- classified as having ‘globose’ or ‘globular’ body shapes. There are some bottom dwellers that are dorso-laterally flattened (many of the goosefish family).
Most of the anglerfish DO actually live deep, there are a few ‘shallow’ water specimens (Histrio histrio being the most researched), but even the ones that are not classified as being extremely deep still live several hundreds of meters down – still too deep for any common fisherman to get to.
The luminescent lure on an anglerfish is called the illicium, while the actual ‘lightbulb’ is called the esca. The bioluminescence is produced from bacteria that live permanently within the esca. Most deep-sea males are reproductively parasitic, fusing their blood vessels with the females once it has clamped onto her. The female has to eat for the both of them, while he supplies her with a lifetime of sperm. A very good strategy for living in the deep where it is hard to find a mate, even in your entire life.
The ‘deep sea’ monster that was shown in Nemo was inspired by real deep-sea anglerfish, as stated in the movie commentary. It is, however, very unrealistic. The movie itself is a wonderful Disney film, but it is just that, with a great many things that are not true. What it is, in fact, can be called nothing more than a “Disney Anglerfish hybrid.”
I am glad to see that people have taken an interest in this incredibly bizarre, fascinating fish.
The Anglerfish in Finding Nemo doesn’t only have a light coming off its head but it’s stomach is lit up as well. Is there really a type of Anglerfish that lights up like that one did?
LOL. The argument about which type of fish the lets just say “monster” fish in Finding nemo is not really a good thing to debate about. It’s DISNEY for crying out loud. I would hate to hear everyone arguing about how terribly wrong they got the Phocahontas story. *Rolls eyes* It does look like an Angler fish more than a Viper though.
Hey thanks for the fun read during naptime. With a two year old here, I watch “Finding Nemo” at least once every other day. I was looking for some pictures and info about an angler fish and stumbled on to this site. It has definitely been interesting. To add my comments about what type of deep sea fish it was, I would have to go with the angler fish, but with accentuated cartoon features (like every other character in the film). It’s too bad that some people can’t see that it’s a cartoon and not a discovery channel documentary.
Again, thanks for the ineresting read.
Thanks for that link, Daywalker! The Blue does indeed seem as if it could be the correct shark for Chum, but the Mako doesn’t seem all that different. Check out this page from the same site.
The primary difference I noticed was the location. The Blue is apparently found mostly in Southern California and Mexico, while the Mako is found in deeper waters worldwide.
As with the Angler, it’s quite possible that the folks at Pixar simply decided on a fish, then enhanced it slightly to make it more interesting as a character. The end result is that it might not be the exact species, but rather a composite of several.
I know this site is all about the Angler, but I saw something I just had ot comment on, albeit off topic. A post a bit back had a link to a site from MIT listing what type of fish each character was. They listed Chum as a Mako. Take a peek at this site , I thought he more resembled the Blue, not the thick bodied Mako. You can deside for yourselves.
Daywalker
I know this sounds funny as a reason behind the fish being an angler fish. I watched finding nemo with my nephew and I wondered what the name of the fish was. I didnt really look for any information on it but when I was watching Sesame Street with my son on Elmo’s World elmos fish dorothy imagined Elmo as an angler fish….Looked the same as in nemo (not as a scary obviously because its a kids TV show) But thats how i got to this webpage cause now that i knew the name i was interested. LOL I told you it was a weird reason for believing it to be an anglerfish.