Day 630, Tasselled Anglerfish

Of all our amazing local critters, this Tasselled Anglerfish, Rhycherus filamentosus, at Rapid Bay would be one of the most difficult to spot.

Plenty of patience (which means plenty of air) is part of finding these in the algae and sponges. The other part is a willingness to see past the obvious. The technique I have found most useful is to look around for a likely habitat and then carefully work my way over every bit of rock, weed, sponge and algae and at each interesting feature try and imagine I am looking at an anglerfish. It's a little bit like staring at the patterns in the clouds trying to find an elephant or a giraffe. With a little patience and of course with a little luck, one might just magically appear before your eyes.

Tasselled Anglerfish are not great swimmers and prefer to sit lying in ambush for a test morsel to swim past. The yellow worm crawling amongst the tassels is the angler's lure. When it attracts a passing fish to investigate just a little too closely that partially open moth snaps up dinner in the blink of an eye.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 630, Tasselled Anglerfish' 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm