Today I Learned …

Deep-sea anglerfish — those blobby things with allll the teeth, enough to give Jaws nightmares — have a very interesting way of reproducing. When a male angler finds a female (who, incidentally, is much larger than he is), he latches onto her with those horrifying teeth and doesn’t let go.

Ever.

As time goes by, the male actually becomes fused to the female. He basically gets absorbed into her body, losing his eyes and all his internal organs … except of course for the testes. The fish need those to make little baby anglerfish. A female anglerfish can support five or six males at a time, so when she’s ready to reproduce, she has her choice of males.