I know what you're thinking. The anglerfish looks super weird, end of story, right? That is wrong and you are shallow. Shameful. The anglerfish is weird for many other reasons.
Firstly, the fleshy outgrowth on their heads (the "esca") is used to lure their prey in, at which point they snap up whoever falls for this bit of trickery in their huge jaws. Apparently they are lazy, because the jaw snapping is a reflexive action that happens on contact with the esca. Deep sea anglerfish have the added bonus of bioluminescence in their esca. I suppose this makes them extra creepy during deep sea dives.
Okay, now...the point of this whole write up, and animalsareweird in general. Animal mating habits tend to be a bit on the weird side as it is, but even sea horses (future entry!) stop and say "whoa, you do what now?" I hope you're sitting down for this. Upon maturation, the digestive system of male anglerfish start degenerating and they can't feed themselves. Okay. Great. This causes them to desperately search for a female, and upon finding them, the male bites into the females skin and secretes an enzyme that fuses the two together. The male then starts degenerating into just a pair of gonads (still attached to the female, mind you) and just sort of hangs around until the female eggs are ready to be fertilized. Then, to complete the circle of bizzarro life, the eggs are then laid in a long thin gelatinous sheet, 2-3 feet wide and 25 - 30 feet long.
Oh, and they supposedly taste like lobster.
