Many deep-sea creatures totally lose all form and function when brought to the surface. This may change as they mature, but in the case of the shorthorn fangtooth, as mentioned, no adults have been discovered.įish have an incredible capacity to morph their bodies as they mature, so the adult could look distinctly different than what we may expect! 5. These “gill rakers” are present in juvenile fangtooth fishes, and suggest that for a while, at least, they are filter feeders. Inside this scary mouth sit rows of small teeth around the gill arches, helping to hold onto smaller prey items.Īll of these teeth seem to be laterally flexible, suggesting they can be used to manipulate food items of various sizes, and facilitate its movement deeper into the mouth. The largest two fangs of the lower jaw are so long, they have evolved specialized sockets either side of their brain to help close their mouths – although they are unable to close them fully!Īlthough the 14 enormous fangs are a third of the size of the fish itself, for its prey, they are only the beginning. Relative to their body size, fangtooths are record-holders for their enormous teeth. Still, no such attack has ever been caught in the depths, so a lot has to be left up to the imagination. The muscles on a Fangtooth suggest a powerful bite and the ability to move quickly and with power.Īs close to proof as we’ve got, this has been somewhat demonstrated in some intriguing documentary footage.ĭespite the Fangtooth footage in BBC’s Blue Planet 2 being shot in a container on board a ship, its ferocious attack on a hapless shrimp does go some way to demonstrating the explosive power of this fish. As such, we can only really infer what they do from their adaptations. These fish live as deep as 5,000 meters, making them one of the deepest-living fishes we know of. While it’s thought that this is the smaller of the two species, it’s impossible to tell without ever having witnessed a mature specimen.Īs you’ll come to learn from this article, there’s quite a lot more we don’t know about the Fangtooth. The shorthorn Fangtooth, Anoplogaster brachycera has only been witnessed in young and juvenile forms. However, they’re mostly found in very deep sea, and most studies are conducted above 2,000m due to logistics. We don’t know how big they can getĪdults of the Anoplogaster cornuta species have been recorded reaching up to 18cm long. What remains to be known is just as exciting as what we already know, and it’s almost certain that this fish hasn’t given up all its secrets to us yet. However, from multiple specimens, alive and dead, we can infer numerous pieces of information about how they live, what they eat, and how they function with those cumbersome teeth. We know more about their young than the adults, as they descend when they mature and are hard to find and study. They are thought to diet on other fish, shrimp and other crustaceans it can find. They are among the deepest-living fish in the ocean and can be found as far as 5,000m (16,000-feet) under the sea. The Fangtooth is actually two species of bony fish, found at tremendous depths all over the world – the common fangtooth (Anoplogaster cornuta) and the shorthorn fangtooth (Anoplogaster brachycera). This is where you’ll find the Fangtooth, also known as the ‘Ogre Fish’. This is where you’ll find the biggest teeth in the ocean. This is one of the most hostile environments on the planet and with such food scarcity and low oxygen levels, only the most horrifyingly resilient can survive.ĭeeper than the giant squid, deeper than the gulper eel. If you were to brave the icy depths of the abyssal plane and turn on a torch, you’d likely be treated to a vast expanse of mostly nothing.
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