xvi creatures from the lesser of the sea that volition give you nightmares

The Atlantic wolffish.

The Atlantic wolffish.
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  • Earth's sea creatures have adapted foreign appearances to assist them thrive in extreme environments.
  • An underwater robot helped give the states a glimpse at some of these listen-boggling animals.
  • To celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8, here's the most unusual sea creatures to be discovered.
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The frilled shark is a "living fossil" — a species that has retained some of the features of its primitive ancestors.

A frilled shark institute past a Japanese fisherman in 2007.
Awashima Marine Park/Getty Images

With its grisly appearance, the frilled shark is an example of a "living fossil," an extant brute whose appearance has not evolved much through the millennia. The term tin also employ to creatures that take few or no close surviving relatives.

What'south most unusual about this prehistoric-looking predator, which is owned to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is the way it reproduces. In other mammal species, embryos are nourished via a placenta. Even so, frilled shark embryos obtain energy from yolk sacs and mothers but give birth once their offspring are capable of surviving on their own.

Growing upto seven feet long, frilled sharks primarily prey on squid. They've also been known to feed on fish — and fifty-fifty other sharks.

Hagfish are known for their repulsive feeding habits: Defective jaws, they consume the decaying carcasses of other sea creatures by burrowing into them with tooth-like structures.

Hagfish feed on the decaying carcasses of other sea creatures.
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In that location are estimated to be 76 species of hagfish — and some live as deep as v,500 anxiety beneath the water's surface. They are as well known every bit slime eels because of the goop their bodies produce to ward off predators.

Scientists gauge that in that location are 76 species of hagfish, which can grow to exist between 16 and xl inches long. Some live as deep every bit 5,600 feet beneath the water's surface.

The Atlantic wolffish is a predatory species characterized past a mouth total of sharp, canine-similar teeth.

The Atlantic wolffish.
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A predatory species that feeds on hard-bodied or spiny invertebrates similar sea urchins and big marine snails, this creature is not aggressive towards humans unless provoked.

You'll notice the Atlantic wolffish, which can grow up to five feet long, in the Due north Atlantic and Chill Oceans. Preferring chillier water, it lives at depths ranging from 328 anxiety to ane,640 feet.

With its lengthy, eel-like body, this fish is also known as a wolf eel.

The goblin shark has 50 teeth in its mouth.

Goblin Shark caught in NSW Australia.
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You lot can place goblin sharks — a rare, lesser-dwelling species — by the shape of their snouts, which are elongated and flattened.

With 50 teeth in their mouths, these gruesome creatures command attention.

Interestingly, female goblin sharks are larger in adulthood than the males of the species. Females tin be a maximum of xi inches long, while males grow to be an boilerplate length of 8.66 inches.

The Japanese spider crab tin can counterbalance up to 44 pounds.

This crab is found in the Pacific Ocean at depths of 160 to 2,000 feet.
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Native to the Pacific Sea, the Japanese spider crab grows up to 15 inches wide and weighs up to 44 pounds. It'southward one of the largest known arthropods, a group of invertebrate animals that also includes lobsters, spiders, and insects.

The vampire squid's scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, ways "vampire squid from hell."

A red vampire squid.
2004 MBARI

In Latin, the name of this cephalopod — which is neither a squid nor an octopus — is even more than sinister. Its scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, means "vampire squid from hell."

But the vampire squid, establish in the inky depths of the mesopelagic zone (about three,300 anxiety below the sea'due south surface), is gentler than its appellation indicates. Different its namesake, information technology doesn't feed on blood. Instead, this brute subsists on "marine snow," decaying organic material that falls to the ocean floor — kind of similar the dead leaves that litter forests.

The anglerfish is most famous for the bioluminescent growth on its head, which lures prey to its death.

There are more than than 200 species of anglerfish.
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The anglerfish, peradventure one of the world's ugliest creatures, is most famous for the bioluminescent growth on its head, which lures prey to its death at the the lightless bottom of the ocean.

Nevertheless, there are more 200 species of anglerfish, divided into four groups: goosefish, batfish, frogfish, and deep-sea angler. Only females possess the iconic, bioluminescent angling apparatus. Near live at the bottom of the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans, sometimes as far as a mile below the surface.

Due to their long, tapered bodies, grenadiers are better known equally "rattails."

A grenadier aka rattail.
2002 MBARI

There are about 300 species of grenadiers, a large-headed fish found in warm and temperate waters.

Due to their long, tapered bodies, these rodent-like creatures are ameliorate known as "rat-tails."

This ghoulish-looking beast is aptly named ghost shark, or chimaera.

Pointy-nosed blueish chimaera.
2007 MBARI

Similar sharks and rays, the ghoulish chimaera is a type of cartilaginous fish. Information technology also bears an uncanny resemblance to Null, the dog from "The Nightmare Earlier Christmas."

Inhabiting temperate to cold waters effectually the world, chimera alive at depths of eight,200 feet or more. There are well-nigh 47 species, which range in length from 24 to fourscore inches.

Archaeological show has proven that bubble have been effectually for millions of years. The earliest fossil specimen, a skull, was dated to about 280 million years ago. It was unearthed in Due south Africa in the 1980s.

The sarcastic fringehead is a tube blenny, a fish that burrows in narrow structures created by other creatures.

A sarcastic fringehead.
Julian Gunther/Shutterstock

Native to the northeast Pacific Ocean near California and Baja California, the sarcastic fringehead is a kind of tube blenny, a type of small fish that burrows in tube-like structures created by other creatures.

Sarcastic fringeheads primarily gorge on squid eggs, but scientists believe that the males' oversized mouths may impede upon their ability to feed.

The barreleye, as well known every bit a spook fish, has extremely low-cal-sensitive eyes on the meridian of its fluid-filled caput.

A barreleye fish.
2004 MBARI.

The barreleye was first described in 1939, just remained a mystery to scientists until 2009, when they discovered that its large, tubular optics could actually rotate inside of its head. This rotational ability allows them to look upward for potential casualty or confront forward to encounter what it is eating.

Since barreleyes live at such depths where in that location is hardly whatever lite, their tubular eyes help them utilise whatever faint amounts of low-cal drift down to them. They also have two spots higher up their mouths which are called nares, analogous to human nostrils.

Every bit the proper name suggests, the faceless cusk eel has no face.

The offset faceless cusk was discovered in 1874.
Fishes of Commonwealth of australia

Like Dementors of the fish world, these eels don't have a confront.

Almost four years ago, Australian researchers establish a faceless cusk an incredible 13,000 anxiety below the water'due south surface. Expedition leader Dr. Tim O'Hara of Australia's Museums Victoria told the Guardian, "It looks like two rear ends on a fish, really."

Plainly its mouth sits underneath the residue of its body, and is "protrusible," meaning it extends to catch food, and so disappears back inside of its own body.

Oceanographers aboard the HMS Challenger nerveless the first specimen of the species in 1873, which was the concluding fourth dimension i was always seen.

The blobfish was named the "world's ugliest animal" in an online poll.

Blobfish have bodies that are less dense than water.
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Named the "world'southward ugliest animal" in an online poll conducted by a British organization called the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, the blobfish belongs to the fathead sculpin family — a group of fish that dwells in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans at depths ranging from 330 to 9,200 feet.

While most fish stay buoyant with the aid of a swim bladder, blobfish — whose bodies are less dense than water — utilize the ocean itself equally a floating mechanism.

The near famous blobfish, Mr. Blobby, was discovered in 2003 off the coast of New Zealand and has inspired everything from plush toys to emoji. Preserved in ethyl alcohol, Mr. Blobby'southward final resting place is at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

The highfin lizardfish grows to a maximum size of two.5 feet.

Bated from its fins, it would be easy to error this fish for a reptile.
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This toothy fella is constitute at depths of more than three,200 feet, and has been spotted in Africa between Kingdom of morocco and Gabonese republic and in Europe between Northern Ireland and the Mediterranean Ocean.

Deepsea lizardfish — whose sharp teeth and large mouths come up in handy for catching casualty on the ocean flooring — tin abound to be more than two feet long.

Bougainvillia superciliaris look like glowing, mini jellyfish

Bougainvillia superciliaris.
Getty Images

These bioluminescent body of water creatures create their own light in the darkness. They either live lonely lives or in colonies, and eat through filter-feeding.

The slender snipe eel can grow to exist at least 4 feet long, but it weighs only a few ounces.

The slender snipe eel spawns once and then dies.
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The slender snipe eel, one of the nigh compact deep-bounding main critters, can abound to a minimum length of four feet, but weighs no more than vi or vii ounces.

Scientists aren't entirely certain how this eel catches its prey, merely they speculate that the process involves the creature using its beak-similar mouth to capture food.

Research likewise suggests that slender snipes spawn once and then dice. They reproduce through a process known as broadcast spawning in which female and males respectively release eggs and sperm into the water column at the same fourth dimension.

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