A rarely photographed, bizarre-looking marine creature known as a "Black Sea Devil" has been captured on video off the California coast, marine scientists say.
A remotely-operated vehicle from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute captured the footage of the creature, also known as an anglerfish, 2,000 feet under the ocean surface.
It is thought to be just the sixth time the elusive fish has been caught on camera and the first-ever video footage of the creature in its natural habitat, researchers said.
Anglerfish are "among the most rarely seen of all deep-sea fishes," says Bruce Robison, senior scientist of the Monterey institute.
"We've been diving out here in the Monterey Canyon regularly for 25 years, and we've seen three," he says.
A glowing, luminescent "fishing pole" rising from its head, common to anglerfish, is used to attract unsuspecting prey in the dark waters, he explains. Robison leads a research team studying how much oxygen deep-sea animals use.
Although looking fearsomely menacing, the fish in the footage is just 3.5-inches long.
After it was filmed, the fish was captured by the remote vehicle and returned to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Although it is being kept in a dark tank of near-freezing water to mimic as closely as possible its native habitat, an aquarium spokesman said researchers did not know how long it might survive.
Very little is understood about the rarely seen fish, experts said. Male black sea devils are known to have much briefer life spans than the much larger females, with their only mission in life being finding a female they can attach themselves to like a parasite.
"If they don't find a female, they drown," says deep-sea anglerfish expert Ted Pietsche, a professor at the University of Washington.
Males lack the nightmarish fangs seen on females and their simplified bodies even lack a proper gut, he says.
"They're not even properly equipped to eat."
The male bites into the female's flesh, never letting go while his circulatory system fuses with that of the female, taking food and oxygen from her body to survive.
The video obtained by the MBARI research vessel adds to the scant knowledge of the creatures, Peitsch says.
"A video would tell us a lot about how it moves, swims, orients to gravity," he says.
Although the example filmed and captured by the Monterey researchers was found at 2,000 feet, the fish can live in the cold, crushing pressures found at four times that depth, researchers say.
Water temperatures in Monterey Bay can be near freezing at just 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
