Latest news with #DavidJaraBoguñá
The Independent
07-03-2025
- Science
- The Independent
How a dying anglerfish became the darling of social media
In February, researchers from conservation organisation Condrik Tenerife were about two kilometres off the coast of Tenerife Island, looking for sharks, when they caught sight of something much stranger. Photographer David Jara Boguñá filmed a humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii, a species of black seadevil) swimming near the surface in sunlit waters. These fish have never before been seen alive in daylight, as they normally dwell in the 'twilight zone' at depths from 200m to 600m. The video has provoked an enormously empathetic response on social media, with some seeing the fish as a feminist icon or an Icarus-like figure who swam too close to the Sun. The reaction shows our views of the deep sea – long ignored or seen as a realm of monsters – may at last be changing. The strange lives of anglerfish Anglerfish are much smaller than you probably think they are. The specimen Boguñá filmed was a female, which typically grow up to 15cm long. The creatures are named for their bioluminescent lure (or esca). This modified dorsal fin ray can produce a glow used to fish (or angle) for prey in the dim depths of the sea. The bioluminescence is produced by symbiotic bacteria that live inside the bulbous head of the esca. Male anglerfish lack the iconic lure and are much smaller, usually reaching a length of only 3cm. A male anglerfish spends the first part of his life searching for a female to whom he will then attach himself. He will eventually fuse his circulatory system with hers, depending on her entirely for nutrients, and live out his life as a parasite or 'living testicle'. It is unknown why this fish was swimming vertically near the surface. Researchers have speculated that the behaviour may have been related to changes in water temperature, or that the fish was simply at the end of her life. Watchers observed the fish for several hours, until it died. Its body was preserved and taken to the Museum of Nature and Archaeology in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where it will be further studied. Sympathy for the seadevil The video quickly went viral, inspiring countless reaction videos, artworks, memes, a Pixar-style animation and a poem titled Icarus is the Anglerfish. One Reddit user commented: 'I like to think she is a respected old grandmother who has dreamed her entire life of seeing the sunlight and the world above the water. She knows her time is nigh so she bade farewell to her friends and family and swam up towards the light and whatever it might hold for her as her life as an anglerfish comes to a close.' One person described the fish as her 'feminist Roman Empire', in the sense of an inspirational obsession that filled the same role for her that the Roman Empire supposedly does for many men. Boguñá and Condrik Tenerife have since commented on the public reaction. (The original post is in Spanish, but Instagram's automated English translation is below.) 'He's become a global icon, that's clear. But far from the romanticisation and attempt to humanise that has been given to its tragic story, I think that what this event has been for is to awaken the curiosity of the sea to PEOPLE, especially the younger ones, and perhaps, it also serves that messages about marine ecosystem conservation can reach so many more people.' From horrors to heroes The outpouring of empathy for the anglerfish is unexpected. With their glowing lures and fang-filled mouths, the creatures have long been archetypal horrors of the abyss. As I have written elsewhere, the anglerfish's extreme sexual dimorphism and parasitism, along with its unsettling anatomy, have made it the 'iconic ambassador of the deep sea'. Anglerfish or angler-inspired aliens have appeared as antagonists in films such as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Finding Nemo (2003), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) and Luca (2021). The reception of 'Icarus' (as some call her) in popular culture indicates a perhaps surprising capacity for empathy toward animals that aren't conventionally cute or beautiful. It stands in stark contrast to the fate of the deep-sea blobfish Psychrolutes marcidus, which in 2013 was voted the world's ugliest animal. Perhaps the name is a clue: people have seen in the fish a creature striving to reach the light, who died as a result of her quest. But does our projection of human emotions and desires onto non-human animals risk misunderstanding scientific reality? Almost certainly – but, as US environmental humanities researcher Stacy Alaimo has argued, it may also have benefits: 'Deep-sea creatures are often pictured as aliens from another planet, and I think that gets people interested in them because we're all interested in novelty and weirdness and the surreal […] I think that can be positive, but the idea of the alien can also cut us off from any responsibility.' The deep sea and its inhabitants face growing threats from seabed mining, plastic pollution, and the effects of human-induced climate change. They need all the empathy they can get.
Fox News
19-02-2025
- Science
- Fox News
Marine expert addresses viral anglerfish video that broke millions of hearts: 'A lot of hypotheses'
A deep-sea anglerfish that was recently spotted in shallow waters has captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of social media users in recent days – and the photographer who spotted it recently opened up about the creature's fate. David Jara Boguñá, a marine photographer affiliated with Condrik Tenerife, a Spanish conservation organization, posted a video about the viral anglerfish on Feb. 13. The fish was documented swimming vertically in shallow waters less than a mile from Tenerife, the largest of Spain's Canary Islands, earlier this month. But the menacing-looking photos did not capture the fish's true size, Jara said – as the deep-sea creature was only about two inches long. "To start with the size….the small fish measured no more than six centimeters," he recalled. "She was more of a black fritter than a black monster." "You've asked me this a lot, but at no time did she attack us," Jara added. "I was more confused [by its presence] than anything else." "The second most important thing I want to clarify is that it was a female, since the males are no more than two, three centimeters long," Jara continued, adding that male anglerfish also lack bioluminescent antennae. The marine expert also discussed a few reasons why the fish, which could have lived as much as 6,000 feet below sea level, was brought to the surface in the first place. "There has been a lot of hypotheses about it," Jara acknowledged. "But the main ones would be that the animal was sick, the animal was swept away upstream or that it was fleeing from sort of predator." The photographer also said that the predatory anglerfish may have "ingested some fish, and that at the time of digestion, gases could have caused it to rise to the surface." In response to the millions of reactions that the video elicited, Jara said that he found commenters' references to climate change "pretentious" and also dismissed fears that the fish was a harbinger of an impending apocalypse. Jara also confirmed that the fish died soon after it was recorded. "Unfortunately, as many of you know, the [anglerfish] died and its body was donated to the Tenerife Museum of Nature and Archaeology," he noted. The expert's clarification came as millions of social media users shed tears over the fish's fate. Initially regarded as "nightmare fuel," the anglerfish has since inspired fan-art and poetry as humans tried to imagine what her journey from the deep-sea was like – with many believing that she purposely traveled to see light in her final moments. "can't talk right now. crying over a fish," one TikTok user wrote on a video viewed millions of times. "there's something deeply poetic about finding the light after a lifetime of darkness," a different user observed. "All I ever do is cry on this damn app," another wrote. "Someone said she was blind and couldn't see the light but probably felt the temp change in the water and knew," a fourth viewer said. "I cried so hard." On another TikTok video of the fish with 1.6 million likes, one user wrote she was personally inspired by the creature's journey. "Because of her and her will to find the light I enrolled myself in school to get my degree," the TikTok user wrote. "I will be finding my light like her." Other social media users were less inspired by the video and the emotional reactions it elicited. "I like to think she was journeying… but my biology background tells me she was dying and lost control of her buoyancy," a commenter wrote. "This isn't a Pixar movie," another said. "She was dying. Stop romanticizing it." It is rare for fish who live so deep in the ocean to be seen in shallow waters alive. Last year, a dead anglerfish washed up on an Oregon beach for the first time in recorded history.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Rare footage of lost anglerfish awes internet, raising questions about ocean conservation
The latest animal to go viral isn't a baby hippo or newborn tapir or anything that cute really: it's a humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii) that was spotted in shallow waters off the coast of Spain. If you know anything about this kind of fish besides the fact that it has a lantern on its head, it's that it doesn't belong in brightly-lit waters — like blind cave salamanders and earthworms, it is a creature of the deep and dark. But seeing it floundering in a glittering blue void quickly infatuated the internet. Because anglerfish need to stay in deep waters to survive (nearly 5,000 feet or 1,500 meters), it is rare for them to reach the surface unless they are sick. Indeed the anglerfish, famous for its razor sharp teeth and bioluminescent lure used to snag prey, died only a few hours after the scientists spotted it. But it was the only documented time humans have seen this fish in this part of the sea. Captured by the underwater photographer David Jara Boguñá, the fish has since found its way all over Reddit, Bluesky and YouTube, with coverage ranging from CBS News, CNN and Oceanographic Magazine. Now the scientists — who were researching pelagic sharks at the country's Canary Islands — are going to study the anglerfish's body, hoping to learn more about its uncharacteristic behavior. Regardless of what they find, experts agree that the anglerfish's plight is a sign that people should be mindful of the health of our planet's oceans, which are heating at an unprecedented rate in human history. That begs the question: is the reason this anglerfish was a stranger in a strange land because of climate change? 'The deep open ocean is a sensitive environment and changing temperatures would essentially shift the balance of the ecosystem that anglerfishes have adapted to exploit,' Chase Brownstein, a research associate at Yale University's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program, told Salon. 'Basically, warming oceans are bad for animals for a variety of reasons, mainly because they are used to a certain temperature range and pushing the limits of that range can put species under metabolic or physiological stress.' Even though the anglerfish's surfacing can raise awareness about ocean pollution, this does not mean we know for sure it did not rise for natural reasons. Ben Frable, the University of California San Diego's Senior Collection Manager of Marine Vertebrates, said that anglerfish surfacing events are not as uncommon as one might think. 'Just off the bat, it is not unheard of to see mesopelagic (200-1,000 m depth) in shallow waters, especially around offshore islands like the Canaries and Hawaii,' Frable said. 'Many mesopelagic organisms vertically migrate into shallower water at night to feed in the more productive shallow waters. As far as we know, anglerfish generally do not vertically migrate as adults but this fish could have come shallow for a myriad of reasons.' With that caveat aside, Frable observed a crucial difference between this particular anglerfish and others that surface — it looks sick. 'As many folks have commented, this fish doesn't seem to be in the best shape, so it could be disoriented from entering shallow, well-lit waters or sick or dying,' Frable said. 'Another type of anglerfish, the footballfishes, are known from individuals entering shallow water and being found barely alive or dead washed up on beaches.' Rafael Banon Diaz, an ichthyologist at the Universidade De Santiago De Compostela, also told Salon that the individual fish in question is 'already dead' and that although not all surfaced anglerfish are sick, 'these anomalous records are normally sick specimens.'On a deeper level, Frable is concerned about how factors like pollution and climate change are making the ocean less hospitable to aquatic life. Anglerfish are among the victims, though it's not clear if that's 100 percent the case with the viral fish. That's why research into the deepest, darkest depths of our planet is so important. 'The deep ocean is impacted by climate change similar to the shallow ocean — decreasing oxygen, increasing acidity and temperature will all have profound impacts,' Frable said. 'However, we are still learning about the implications of this. It impacts circulation and currents, which in turn changes the distribution of food and habitable space for these fish and other organisms.' If these trends continue, humans may someday enter a world where anglerfish do not exist at all. If that happens, scientists like Frable believe it would be a terrible loss. 'Anglerfishes are some of the most iconic deep-sea fish and have certainly captivated me (like many others) from an early age,' Frable said. 'I have been fortunate enough to work with them in my role as Collection Manager of the Marine Vertebrate Collection here at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UC San Diego) as this is one of the largest deep-sea fish collections.' Brownstein thinks that, at the very least, the recent video will revive public interest in this unusual creature. 'It is very cool to see a new video of this species, though it is clear this anglerfish was on its way out,' Brownstein said. 'Pelagic deep sea anglerfishes, including the Melanocetus shown in the video, are really quite an amazing group of organisms notable for their morphological diversity and their odd mode of reproduction, wherein males temporarily attach to females or fuse such that both individuals share a bloodstream!'
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Video shows Black seadevil fish making rare swim near sea surface
In what may be the world's first-ever recorded sighting, a black seadevil — anglerfish known for living thousands of feet beneath the ocean's surface where the light no longer touches — was caught on camera swimming close to the ocean's surface. The footage, captured in Spain's Canary Islands, shows the female fish, whose Latin name translates to "black sea monster," swimming through the light-filled ocean waters off the coast of Tenerife. The discovery was made by NGO Condrik Tenerife and marine life photographer David Jara Boguñá while they were researching sharks. In a joint Instagram post, the organization and Boguñá said that the fish emerged from the abyss about 1.2 miles off the coast of Tenerife in Spain. Once they got closer, they realized it was a humpback anglerfish, a type of black seadevil anglerfish similar to what was portrayed in the Disney animated movie "Finding Nemo." The genus in its Latin name for the species, Melanocetus johnsonii, translates to "black sea monster." "It could be the first recorded sighting in the world of an adult black devil or abyssal anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii) alive, in broad daylight and on the surface," Boguñá and Condrik Tenerife said in their post, adding that the record to date has seemingly only included larvae or dead adults, and the only live viewings have been recorded via submarine. "... A legendary fish that few people will have had the privilege of observing alive," the post said. The researchers described the fish as a "true predator of the depths," a characterization which rings true. Black seadevils can live up to 15,000 feet under the ocean surface, with humpback anglerfish specifically known to live as deep as roughly 6,500 feet under the sea, according to the researchers. Such a depth is known as the Bathypelagic Zone, or the "midnight zone," where animals live in constant darkness and the only light comes from bioluminescence. Female black seadevils, such as the one that was documented, will attract prey with a fishing rod-like structure on their head that has a tip that lights up in the dark. As demonstrated in "Finding Nemo," prey are attracted to the light, and when they get close, the anglerfish can eat them. Female humpback anglerfish are the more powerful of the sexes in this species, growing far larger than their male counterparts. They can grow to be 7 inches and take on the more iconic look with a large head with pointed teeth and the bioluminescent lure, while the males only grow to be about an inch long and lack a lure, according to the Australian Museum. Researchers aren't sure why this female found her way in such light-filled and shallow waters. They said it could be due to an illness, updraft or perhaps fleeing from a predator. But what they do know is that the observation was "surprising." "[It] did not leave the crew indifferent and will be remembered forever," they said. Breaking down the best commercials from the Super Bowl Here's what could be behind surging flu cases, plus symptoms to watch New poll on Trump approval rating as steel, aluminum tariffs set
CBS News
11-02-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Video shows Black seadevil fish, usually only found in lightless depths of the sea, making rare swim near ocean surface
In what may be the world's first-ever recorded sighting, a black seadevil — anglerfish known for living thousands of feet beneath the ocean's surface where the light no longer touches — was caught on camera swimming cloe to the ocean's surface. The footage, captured in Spain's Canary Islands, shows the female fish, whose Latin name translates to "black sea monster," swimming through the light-filled ocean waters off the coast of Tenerife. The discovery was made by NGO Condrik Tenerife and marine life photographer David Jara Boguñá while they were researching sharks. In a joint Instagram post, the organization and Boguñá said that the fish emerged from the abyss about 1.2 miles off the coast of Tenerife in Spain. Once they got closer, they realized it was a humpback anglerfish, a type of black seadevil anglerfish similar to what was portrayed in the Disney animated movie "Finding Nemo." The genus in its Latin name for the species, Melanocetus johnsonii, translates to "black sea monster." View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS News Climate Watch (@cbsnewsplanet) "It could be the first recorded sighting in the world of an adult black devil or abyssal anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii) alive, in broad daylight and on the surface," Boguñá and Condrik Tenerife said in their post, adding that the record to date has seemingly only included larvae or dead adults, and the only live viewings have been recorded via submarine. "... A legendary fish that few people will have had the privilege of observing alive," the post said. The researchers described the fish as a "true predator of the depths," a characterization which rings true. Black seadevils can live up to 15,000 feet under the ocean surface, with humpback anglerfish specifically known to live as deep as roughly 6,500 feet under the sea, according to the researchers. Such a depth is known as the Bathypelagic Zone, or the " midnight zone," where animals live in constant darkness and the only light comes from bioluminescence. Female black seadevils, such as the one that was documented, will attract prey with a fishing rod-like structure on their head that has a tip that lights up in the dark. As demonstrated in "Finding Nemo," prey are attracted to the light, and when they get close, the anglerfish can eat them. Female humpback anglerfish are the more powerful of the sexes in this species, growing far larger than their male counterparts. They can grow to be 7 inches and take on the more iconic look with a large head with pointed teeth and the bioluminescent lure, while the males only grow to be about an inch long and lack a lure, according to the Australian Museum. Researchers aren't sure why this female found her way in such light-filled and shallow waters. They said it could be due to an illness, updraft or perhaps fleeing from a predator. But what they do know is that the observation was "surprising."
