A female will carry six or more males on her body. One is a strong, firmly muscled body, and the other is a watery, flabby body with a weak skeleton. These fishes have two general body types. The jaws of lanternfishes have many tiny teeth. The most common lanternfishes look like anchovies and sometimes are called glowing anchovies. As Domagoj mentions in his answer, it sounds like you are actually referring to an anglerfish (family Lophiiformes) and not a lanternfish (family Myctophidae ). Lanternfishes are small, about 3 inches (8 centimeters) long. Over time, the male physically fuses with the female, connecting to her skin and bloodstream and losing his eyes and all his internal organs except the testes. Lanternfishes or myctophids are smaller fish that use bioluminecence for communication during mating season. When a young, free-swimming male angler encounters a female, he latches onto her with his sharp teeth. Diaphus rafinesquii is bathypelagic or mesopelagic and oceanodromous, living at depths of 402,173 m (1317,129 ft) in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. In lieu of continually seeking the vast abyss for a female, it has evolved into a permanent parasitic mate. The white-spotted lantern fish is silvery in colour, spotted with photophores, with a maximum length of 9 cm (3.5 in). The male, which is significantly smaller than the female, has no need for such an adaptation. Their mouths are so big and their bodies so pliable, they can actually swallow prey up to twice their own size. Tipped with a lure of luminous flesh this built-in rod baits prey close enough to be snatched. Their most distinctive feature, worn only by females, is a piece of dorsal spine that protrudes above their mouths like a fishing pole-hence their name. Most however are significantly smaller, often less than a foot. About Lanternfishes In the murky depths of the ocean twilight zone, it helps to bring a flashlight. Some angler fish can be quite large, reaching 3.3 feet in length. Generally dark gray to dark brown in color, they have huge heads and enormous crescent-shaped mouths filled with sharp, translucent teeth. There are more than 200 species of anglerfish, most of which live in the murky depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, up to a mile below the surface, although some live in shallow, tropical environments. It is quite possibly the ugliest animal on the planet, and it lives in what is easily Earth's most inhospitable habitat: the lonely, lightless bottom of the sea. The angry-looking deep sea anglerfish has a right to be cranky.
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