The male becomes a permanent appendage that draws nutrition from its female host and serves as an easily accessible source of sperm. Rare angler fish washed up on a California beach Scientists believe it is a Pacific Football Fish, which typically lives at least 2,000 feet below the waters surface. The males of some anglerfish species, including the football fish, have evolved into “sexual parasites.” Using well-developed olfactory organs, they find and fuse themselves to females, eventually losing their eyes, internal organs, and everything else but the testes. Scientists at University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography swiftly identified it as a Pacific football fish, a deep-sea dweller so rare that only 31 specimens have. The first spine of an anglefish's dorsal fins, called the illicium, extends outward to end in a fleshy, phosphorescent bulb (or esca), which the fish use to lure prey. Male and female anglerfish differ dramatically in size, with some females measuring up to ten times larger than their male counterparts. Evidence suggests that large declines may have occurred in the last 50 years. 2015) as moderate concern since the species still occupies much of its native range, but at much smaller numbers. Under this designation, the status was identified by (Moyle et al. This was the same Pacific footballfish ( Himantolophus sagamius) we now have in our collections, and one of more than 300 living species of anglerfish (of the order Lophiiformes) found around the world. Pacific Lamprey is a California State Species of Special Concern. The Crystal Cove State Park took their Facebook page to give information about this species. Scripps said the 13-inch-long, 5-pound fish is one of only 31 Pacific football fish specimens to have ever been collected by researchers. The park rangers were informed immediately. In 1985, deep-sea fishermen in Monterey Bay, California, hauled up their nets to find a menacing-looking fish with a 6-inch-long globular body, prickly skin, needle-sharp teeth, miniscule eyes, and a strange stalk on its head. A Pacific Football fish which was washed ashore resembling a football with razor-sharp teeth was spotted by a beachgoer on Friday morning while he was out on his morning stroll.
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