The male becomes a permanent appendage that draws nutrition from its female host and serves as an easily accessible source of sperm. Scientists at University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography swiftly identified it as a Pacific football fish, a deep-sea dweller so rare that only 31 specimens have. The males of some anglerfish species, including the football fish, have evolved into “sexual parasites.” Using well-developed olfactory organs, they find and fuse themselves to females, eventually losing their eyes, internal organs, and everything else but the testes. The first spine of an anglefish's dorsal fins, called the illicium, extends outward to end in a fleshy, phosphorescent bulb (or esca), which the fish use to lure prey. Male and female anglerfish differ dramatically in size, with some females measuring up to ten times larger than their male counterparts. This was the same Pacific footballfish ( Himantolophus sagamius) we now have in our collections, and one of more than 300 living species of anglerfish (of the order Lophiiformes) found around the world. The Crystal Cove State Park took their Facebook page to give information about this species. The latest Pacific footballfish to be washed ashore in the state was spotted near Encinitas last Friday, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The park rangers were informed immediately. ![]() In 1985, deep-sea fishermen in Monterey Bay, California, hauled up their nets to find a menacing-looking fish with a 6-inch-long globular body, prickly skin, needle-sharp teeth, miniscule eyes, and a strange stalk on its head. A Pacific Football fish which was washed ashore resembling a football with razor-sharp teeth was spotted by a beachgoer on Friday morning while he was out on his morning stroll. The football-shaped fiend is currently being held by the CA Department of Fish & Wildlife but will likely end up on display in a museum or other such institution, the post said.
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