Deepsea fish. Not for the faint of heart!

Wow, those are some interesting pictures. I've never heard of those before, it makes you wonder what other creatures are in the ocean that we've never seen.

Humpty Dumpty.

Originally posted by Yarcofin

Chambered Nautillus

The chambered Nautillus looks like a cuttlefish

It's Ziggy after spending too much time in the tub!

yikes! look at these guys...

one more

That's probably what we looked like millions of years ago. Maybe it's an unevolved humanoid of some sort. Lmao no...I guess it's more likely to be the illusive Ziggy.

Nice finds noslen. The first one looks like an evil twin of PacMan. lol. To be fair, the last one in your first post there is a Viperfish. It's not really that big... a couple of inches. But still ridiculously terrifying.

Originally posted by Yarcofin
It's not really that big... a couple of inches. But still ridiculously terrifying.

I wonder if i can purchase these anywhere on the net for my fishtank

Would be a lot cooler than piranhas that you can get at any pet store

Lol there may be some problems:

-They live in pitch black, so I'm not sure, but you may need to keep them in pitch black or they may become very disoriented/die from being exposed to light.

-Besides the pitch black, you may also need to have it pressurized since way deep down there, the pressure is much stronger than at the surface. They may be able to adjust to this, though. If you were to capture a live specimen, you would have to allow it periodic stops to adjust to pressure (Much like divers have to do) while bringing it up.

-Probably for this reason, I don't think a live specimen has ever been brought to the surface. There may be some super-scientific deepsea research facility somewhere that has some live ones kept in a darkroom somewhere.

-They are still quite unknown species. It's tough to know how they act or what they need to survive, or how big they really can get. I'd imagine we don't even know what a lot of them eat, besides cutting open the stomachs of dead ones. (Just basic care in general.)

I agree it'd be totally sweet, but it would be very difficult too. Maybe in a few decades it will be more plausible and we can all have awesome vampire fish .

d&mn you Yarc always being logical and shooting down my hopes lol. Yea i kind of figured it would be near impossible, but would be extremely cool to have one.

Very interesting. I have no doubt that there are many, many creatures residing on earth that we have yet to discover. So many places are so difficult to reach by humans, such as the deepest parts of the oceans or the thickest parts of the rainforests, that as time goes on, new species will be discovered. Who knows, maybe there really is a creature in Lock Ness

actually, judging by the shape and how it looks "deflated", im guessing the nose looking part would look something like that of a shark, the way their noses kind of stick out

The Chimaera fish is pretty impressive in my opinion. It looks like 2 animals sticking together; the body is a fish and the beak is of course the beak of a bird, not to mention that tail and those fins.

Originally posted by Laurent Van Winckel
The Chimaera fish is pretty impressive in my opinion. It looks like 2 animals sticking together; the body is a fish and the beak is of course the beak of a bird, not to mention that tail and those fins.

its the platypus of the sea

Chimera

[from the Middle English chimere, Chimera, from Old French, from Latin chimaera, from Greek khimaira, chimera, she-goat. See ghei- in Indo-European Roots.]

An organism, organ, or part consisting of two or more tissues of different genetic composition, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering.
A substance, such as an antibody, created from the proteins or genes or two different species.
An individual who has received a transplant of genetically and immunologically different tissue.
A fanciful mental illusion or fabrication.

Source: Dictionary.com

The fish sort of fits into two definitions. Looking like it is a combination of two creatures, and being a crazy dream .

It is also worth noting that what you are showing there is a Chimera pup. Sort of a weird, larval non-developed state. Here is a mature one, from what I can find:

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This one looks more like the deepsea variety:
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More:





If I had to guess, I would say the "beak" is a fat storage that the pups are born with, much like tadpoles keeping and using up their tails when they change into frogs. The fact that the babies are called "pups" also suggests to me that these fish are live-born like whales, although they seem a bit small for that.

The fact that it loses it's nose just makes it even cooler though . And I would say it is probably the cutest of the deepsea fish, (besides the red one there), probably one of the few that doesn't have a mouth three times the size of it's body, or teeth coming out the wah-zoo. It seems to be a non-deepwater fish that is in the process of evolving into a deepwater fish.

[edit on 10-11-2005 by Yarcofin]

That blob fish is quite a spectacle. Have any of you seen the documentary where they go down to the unexplored deep sea abysses with the new state of the art high pressure submarines?

Theyre finding all sorts of odd creatures down there. Some of the fish are completely translucent, some of them give off them have built in lighting mechanisms to produce artificial light down there.

Heres a real deepsea anomaly that has been baffling scientists for years.

The deepsea banana fish

Wow, look at the size of this one!





To ruin the fun, there actually is a type of fish called "Banana Fish". It also seems to be a manga, a band, etc.

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[edit on 10-11-2005 by Yarcofin]