As one of the world’s most diverse vertebrates, fish can come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. With over 33,000 species inhabiting the Earth’s aquatic habitats, some are bound to be a bit on ...

Barreleye fish are named for their unique, barrel-shaped eyes. These eyes can rotate, allowing the fish to look both upward and straight ahead. Their eyes also have bright green lenses protected ...

At first glance, the blobfish, also known as a flathead sculpin (Psychrolutes phrictus), looks like a pinkish, gelatinous blob with a droopy mouth and a sagging nose. It looks even worse when it is ...

For an animal, surviving in the ocean’s deepest trenches requires remarkable adaptations: a gelatinous body that can withstand pressure, bioluminescent features to guide it, and a transparent ...

From bone-eating snot-flowers to snowboarding scale worms, when a whale dies it becomes a colossal island of nutrients – ...

To say spotted ratfish are unusual is an understatement. Related to sharks, they abound in the inky dark depths of the Puget Sound. Armed with a venomous fin, they swim gracefully along the sea floor ...

A juvenile spotted ratfish. These deep-sea fish are named for their long, rat-like tails. Gareth J. Fraser, University of Florida Deep in the ocean, you can find a strange fish with teeth not just in ...

These three fish are freaks, phantoms and mysteries of the deep. Here’s what we’ve learned from the rare glimpses we’ve had of their lives. The deep sea is one of Earth’s final frontiers. Given its ...

The deep sea is cold, dark and under immense pressure. Yet life has found a way to prevail there, in the form of some of Earth's strangest creatures. Since deep-sea critters have adapted to near ...

We know surprisingly little about the deep ocean or the strange creatures that live there. These unusual animals have evolved without sunlight and survive in complete darkness, resulting in many ...