THE STRANGE LIFE HISTORY OF ANGLERFISH

(I can't tell you a whole lot more about this dream image, which looks like the illustration for a book, apart from the fact that I found it here.)

In my new book DEEP BLUE HOME I write at some length about the strange life history of anglerfish. Here's a snippet of an excerpt from a longer section about the death journey of a great whale to the bottom of the sea:

Odd gelatinous anglerfishes approach, the females casting fishing tackle attached to their foreheads, complete with rods, lines, luminescent lures, and sometimes hooks. Their male partners accompany them in the form of tiny parasitical appendages attached by their jaws to the females’ skins, where they subsist on embryoniclike connections to her blood supply. Thus conjoined, the males atrophy to nothing more than their gonads, awaiting the moment to spawn.

But, really, why write at all when Matthew Inman has created this masterpiece of scientific cartooning? Below is one of his five frames on the subject of anglerfish, called How the Male Anglerfish Gets Completely Screwed. Click on the frame for a bigger version:

You'll have to wander over to The Oatmeal to read the rest. It's worth the click.

And in case you missed it the first time I posted it, check out Isabella Rossellini's fantastic Green Porno Anglerfish film.