🐡 The anglerfish is one of the ocean's most fascinating deep-sea predators, best known for the bioluminescent lure that protrudes from the female's head. This natural fishing rod (called an illicium) contains light-producing bacteria in its bulbous tip (the esca), which attracts prey in the pitch-black depths where sunlight never reaches. What makes this adaptation particularly remarkable is how the anglerfish has evolved a symbiotic relationship with specific bacteria that produce this light without requiring oxygen, essential for survival in the oxygen-poor abyssal zone where these fish live, sometimes more than a mile beneath the ocean's surface.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ 👀 Perhaps even more extraordinary is the anglerfish's bizarre mating ritual. Male anglerfish are tiny compared to females—sometimes less than an inch long, while females can reach three feet—and have evolved to become permanent parasites on their mates. When a male finds a female, he bites into her body and releases enzymes th...