Black Dragonfish

A Black Dragonfish is a very long, very thin fish that lives in deep water and will go as low in the water as about 2 thousand feet.

They are at home in the depths of the ocean and will spend their entire lives there, without surfacing much closer than a thousand feet below the surface.

Dragonfish are what is known as sexually dimorphic.

Black Dragonfish

This means that the female will be much larger in size than the male will be and that the female is the more voracious of the two.

The female has very tiny eyes and extremely long fangs which are used for catching their prey. They will feed primarily on other fishes and may bait them in by the use of lights which they have all over their bodies.

The Black Dragonfish has a very unique ability. Like a lot of fish who live in the deep ocean or sea, it can make its own headlight.

The fish has what are called photophores scattered all along its body, and has two rows of much larger lights down its sides to help it light its way to where its going.

The male is much smaller, in fact about one tenth the size of the female. It has no teeth, no long chin barbell and has a non working gut.

Instead of being black, it is very dark brown to dull brown in color. The chin barbel of the female has a very thin luminous light up tip. This is most likely part of the bait that is used to attract prey.

Black Dragonfish

Larval Black Dragonfish are the most unusual type of all.. They are long, thin fishes who are nearly transparent and they have their eyes at the ends of very long stalks of flesh that are nearly half the length of their bodies.

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