FIRST PHOTOS: Fish With Transparent Head, "Barrel" Eyes

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Otto_VonBacon

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Nov 16, 2008
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Montgomery TEXAS
This is amazing, just look at that thing!
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February 23, 2009--With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes—topped by green, orblike structures—in a picture released today but taken in 2004.

The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact.

The 6-inch (15-centimeter) barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939—but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.

The beady bits on the front of the Pacific barreleye fish in this picture released February 23, 2009, aren't eyes but smell organs.

ince the eyes are upright tubes, "it just looked like [they only] looked straight up," MBARI marine technician Kim Reisenbichler said. But by watching live fish from a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and by bringing a barrelfish to an aquarium for study, the scientists discovered that the eyes can pivot, like a birdwatcher pointing binoculars.

The barreleye lives more than 2,000 feet (600 meters) beneath the ocean's surface, where the water is almost inky.

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ransparent-head-barreleye-picture/photo4.html

That thing is crazy, I've always wondered what weird things lived deep down in the ocean.

Mods- if this is not the right section, please move.
 
NUTZ!!!

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Fish on Fire;2827745; said:
Wow man, freaken cool, I wonder what monsters live in the depths though.

:WHOA:

your comment makes me think of one word

Megalodon

:WHOA:
 
wtf is that! :confused:
 
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