Sciartober Day 31: And the last one goes to the owlfish for the prompt: dark. There are only video reference for this animal along with a few illustrations, but I wanted to do something from one of MBARI's videos. I corrected the forehead to be less sloped, though the mouth might still be too big for this particular fish. Pentel brushpen, Windsor & Newton fine-line marker, and Prismacolor fine-line marker on Canson mixed media.

Bathylagus antarcticus por Solvin Zankl 

Bathylagus antarcticus is a deep-sea smelt of the genus Bathylagus, found in all the southern oceans as far south as Antarctica, from the surface to depths of 4,000 m. Their length is between 10 and 15 cm. (deep-sea smelt) Bathylagus antarcticus is a small deepwater fish with a long tapering body, large head and very large eyes. The second dorsal fin is adipose. It only has a few feeble teeth and probably has a diet of small planktonic animals. It is a uniform dark brown-black and the muscles are soft and flabby. Spawning probably occurs 3-4 times a year.

Videos unlock secrets of jellyfish as deep-sea killers

http://bit.ly/2BIhQTQ Video footage of a Gonatus squid feeding on a bathylagid fish. © of MBARI Scientists have for the first time captured extensive visual documentation of predation events that underpin deep-sea food webs. The research, which relies on hundreds of video observations captured over nearly three decades by deep-diving remotely operated vehicles run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), reveals the importance of deep-sea jellies in these ecosystems as major predators and sources of sustenance. Until now, our understanding of food webs in the deep ocean have been limited by what species can be captured by net and whose bodies can survive a journey to the surface. That meant soft-bodied, gelatinous animals like jellyfish have been greatly underrepresented using traditional surveying techniques. MBARI’s approach enabled researchers Anela Choy, Steven Haddock, and Bruce Robison to capture deep-sea predators in the act of feeding, offering new insight into predator-prey relationships at depths up to nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) off the California coast. “This direct approach has never been used systematically before,” Robison said in a statement. “Unlike other methods, it involves no guesswork and provides very precise information about who eats whom in the deep sea.” ROV frame grabs of pelagic predators and their prey from Choy et al (2017). (a) Gonatus squid feeding on a bathylagid fish (Bathylagidae). (b) Periphylla periphylla, the helmet jellyfish, feeding on a gonatid squid (Gonatidae), with a small narcomedusa (Aegina sp.) also captured. Images © MBARI; caption adapted from Choy et al (2017). The…

Monday mantra: Just keep swimming. ✨

The owlfish, named for the size of its large eyes relative to its head, lives throughout the North Pacific. Species in the family Bathylagidae are relatively common in the deep sea, living at depths of over 6,000 meters (19,685 feet). Here in the Monterey Bay, we observe these fish between a few hundred meters to over 2,000 meters (6,560 feet).