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This bizarre-looking fish is a female anglerfish (Linophryne brevibarbata) with a male attached to her. Upon encounter, a rare event in the sparsely populated depths of the sea, the male bites into the female’s skin and doesn’t let go. Their tissues fuse, their blood vessels join and the male slowly atrophies (his body degenerates as if it was in a coma), first losing his digestive organs, then his brain, heart and eyes until he is nothing more than a pair of gonads (testes).
In this image, the small pipe-shaped structures clinging to the female’s bulbous underside is the atrophied body of the male. The female can carry several males on her body at once, ensuring a constant supply of fresh sperm for when she is ready to spawn. Animal sperm banks ask a high price.
http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2
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