OH MY GOD we’ve got the FIRST EVER actual live footage of a gulper eel!!!
All previous videos have been of dead specimens floating around in tanks.
Nobody ever knew until now that they might float around with their mouth inflated like a goofy balloon like this.
It starts to “billow” mid-way through the video because of the deep sea rover’s jet stream and it puts up with that for quite a while before it finally gets too annoyed.
This is a Gulper eel, a deep-sea fish rarely seen by humans. It is not actually an eel, though it’s a close relative. The most remarkable feature about it its the mouth, larger that the entire body and loosely hinged so that it can open extremely wide and swallow fish that are bigger than the eel itself, which are stored in a very stretchable stomach.
These images haunt me in a good and a bad way, I’m curious from which expedition these are. They’re so old, but weirdly HD.
Gulper Eel
The eel’s mouth is loosely hinged, and can be opened wide enough to swallow an animal much larger than itself. The hepless fish is then deposited into a pouch-like lower jaw, which resembles that of a pelican. The gulper’s stomach can also stretch to accommodate its large meals.
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