Bulbous dreamer

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iBulbous dreamer
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Lophiiformes
Family: Oneirodidae
Genus: Oneirodes
Species: M. eschrichtii
Binomial name
Melanocetus eschrichtii
Lütken, 1871

The bulbous dreamer, Oneirodes eschrichtii, is a dreamer of the family Oneirodidae, found in all oceans, in deep water. Its length is up to 28 cm for males and up to 21 cm for females.

Female bulbous dreamers have scaleless round bodies with a large forward directed mouth full of very small teeth, a folding lure at the tip of the snout, and a distinctive tentacle-like appendage in the middle of the back. The much smaller males lack teeth, lure, and gut.

Males are free swimming when young but before they mature these small fishes attach themselves permanently to the hind body of the female and become parasitic. Their blood supply becomes continuous with that of the female and most of the internal organs degenerate: they become simply appendages to supply sperm when required.

Coloration is a uniform black.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • "Oneirodes eschrichtii". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. May 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
  • Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand, (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) ISBN 0-00-216987-8
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