The deep sea hosts twice as many shapes of fish as shallow waters
Living in the deep sea may be why the anglerfish is so weird looking Solvin Zankl/Alamy
With eels that have heads shaped like tweezers anglerfish that look like swimming light bulbs, the deep sea is host to a strange menagerie of fish body forms. The alien conditions at the bottom of the ocean may be the cause, making the dark depths a hotspot of body-shape evolution.
Previous research has shown that fish metabolism, muscle enzymes swimming strength decreased with depth, says Christopher Martinez at the University of California, Davis. But …