Photo by MBARI
This whale-fish , without a trace of scales, with really small eyes and a rather disturbing general appearance, is a creature that lives in the so-called Midnight Zone, otherwise known as the bathyal plane, or the area that extends near the continental slope, to a depth between depths of 200 and 2000 meters.
The specimen in question swam for a while near an ROV, a remotely controlled underwater research vehicle, which was exploring a stretch of sea, at a depth of of about 2000 meters, off the Monterey Bay, California. This whalefish belongs to the order of the Cetomimiformes, an order formed mainly by small abyssal fish, often with bioluminescent organs and generally characterized by a very pronounced sexual dimorphism. According to the opinion of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the specimen encountered would be female, about 45 centimeters long and of a rusty red color.
Photo by MBARI
The most prominent peculiarity of this curious creature, would be the way it sees or, to be more precise, does not see. As females of this species evolve from larval to adult stage, their eyes lose the ability to focus images. In order to orient themselves, these fish have evolved by developing a series of extremely pressure-sensitive pores, which runs along the entire body of the animal. These pores allow the fish to detect the surrounding environment through the vibrations that propagate in the water. An effective way, however bizarre, to adapt to an environment where twilight lighting reigns, if not absolutely absent.
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