These fish are not just out of the deep sea; they’re straight out of your nightmares, thanks to the social media accounts of a Russian deep-sea fisherman.
Roman Fedortsov, based in Murmansk, Russia, usually targets the more conventional-looking fish like cod and haddock. However, every now and then, he makes unexpected catches of rarely-seen species.
“This fish rarely gets into the trawl,” Fedortsov explained via a Telegram app communication with Newsweek regarding one of his particularly odd catches. “This is an accidental catch.”
Currently, Fedortsov is in the Norwegian Sea, where he deploys deep-sea trawlers. Occasionally, he catches non-target species, takes pictures of them, sometimes from unusual angles, and shares the images on his Instagram and Twitter accounts.
For instance, the image below features Lycodes reticulatus, a plentiful fish from the North Atlantic Ocean. Fedortsov has mentioned that he thinks they resemble dwarves from “The Lord of the Rings.”
Here’s a photo of a fish with a parasitic isopod in its mouth. This creature consumes its host’s tongue and then resides in its mouth.
Of course, Fedortsov can make already weird-looking fish appear even more peculiar with some clever camera angles. Take this halibut, for instance; it seems to have only one eye, but the other eye is on the far side of its body. Halibuts are born with an eye on each side of their body, but one eye migrates to join the other.
Below is an image of a bearded sea devil, a member of the anglerfish genus.
Sadly, the fish caught as bycatch meet an unfortunate end when brought up to the surface. As deep-sea creatures, they are accustomed to high-pressure environments, and when rapidly brought to the surface, their eyes can sometimes pop out, and their organs may rupture.
But this is the reality of deep-sea fishing and studying marine life. As the saying goes in Russia, “Без муки нет науки,” which translates to “without torture, no science.”
