If you thought Frankenfish was ugly, you haven’t seen anything yet. That’s because you haven’t seen the fish with the transparent head. That ugly beast off to your right is called Macropinna microstoma, or the barreleye fish. His head is completely transparent, and incredibly gross. It looks like some kind of mutant, but this unfortunate fella’s weirdness is actually a crucial survival mechanism.
According to Discovery, the barreleye’s unusual head design allows it to use it’s tubular eye stalks to keep an eye on predators and prey no matter where it might be in relation to the freaky fish’s head. It has a tiny mouth, but a huge digestive system, and the fish has been known to eat jellyfish. If you’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish, then you know that barreleye are pretty good hunters to get away with that kind of dangerous prey.
The Monterey Bay Aquatic Research Institute has a full image gallery of the freaky critter that normally resides in deep water off California’s coast. Believe me, animals don’t get much creepier than this thing. Just eyeballing that guy for very long gives me the willies!
Tags: macropinna microstoma, barreleyes, unusual fish, ugly fish, transparent headed fish, nature, oddities, animals