A strange fact about the deep sea angler is that the male is 40 times smaller and different in appearance from the female, which is pictured below. The male of the species is about the size of a finger and has small hook teeth which it uses to attach itself to the female. Once attached, its blood vessels join with that of the female and it will spend the rest of its life joined to her like a parasite, getting all of its nourishment from her body. Without any need for most of his organ systems, such as eyes and digestive organs, the male's body degenerates into essentially a pair of sperm-producing testicles. If the male is unable to attach to a female, it will eventually dies of starvation.
Saw it on Animal Planet, and had to look the reference up. And I thought I'd seen some really one-sided relationships, before...
(note: I kinda blended stuff from two websites to get the details complete, and couldn't post the picture 'cos the upload permissions are screwey after the transfer)
Edited by Desert_Diver, 22 March 2006 - 10:59 PM.
