daggertooth
Anotopterus pharao
About
The daggertooth is a hunter of the open ocean, a long pale fish that runs down other fish in the dark middle waters. It is known from the North Atlantic and the sea west of Africa, and has been recorded as deep as 5100 m. Young fish stay in the great circling current of the open ocean, while big adults turn up mainly in cold northern water. It eats mid-water fish, some of them large, and small squid. It reaches about 96 cm. It is almost never seen whole: the body is so soft that trawled fish arrive torn or crushed, which is common in animals built for open water where there is nothing to bump into.
Also known as: north atlantic daggertooth, north atlantic daggertooth
- Length
- 96 cm
- Depth
- up to 5100 m
How to tell it apart
At a glance it is easy to take for a needlefish or a gar. The give-away is the back: this fish carries no fin there at all, only a small fleshy lump further back towards the tail, while needlefish and gars both have a clear fin on the back. Its name, Anotopterus, means exactly that - without fins on the back.
Appearance
Long, thin and round-bodied, more like a needlefish or a gar than a normal deep-sea fish. The jaws are long and carry big, blade-like teeth, which the fish sheds and grows back quickly. The flesh is soft and easily damaged.
Did you know?
Near the end of its life the daggertooth changes completely. It turns black, loses its teeth and stops replacing them, stops eating altogether, its gut shrinks away and its sex organs swell enormously. It is thought to drop into deeper, darker water for this last short stage, which is why fish in this state are hardly ever caught.
Log it in Into the Blue
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