Characteristics And Morphology Of The Black Swallower
The black swallower is a species of fish belonging to the order Perciformes and the family Chiasmodontidae . It lives in the dark depths of the sea and its scientific name is Chiasmodon niger .
This fish feeds on almost any other animal it finds, regardless of their size. For this reason, most of the captured specimens of this species have surfaced due to the ingestion of excessively large prey.
This causes them to die when because their stretchable stomach is being torn apart. Let’s find out together the characteristics and the morphology of the black swallower.
Characteristics, morphology and habitat
The black swallower is a marine fish that lives in the mesopelagic zones and in the bathyal plane, in other words, between 700 and 2,750 meters deep. Its distribution extends over much of the world, so it can be found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. However, tropical areas are where it can be found most easily.
Its body is long and dark black in color. It can measure up to 25 centimeters and is free of scales. The jaw is large and extremely foldable, with many teeth with large canines. The fins on the chest are long. It also has two dorsal fins, the second of which is longer than the first.
The most striking feature of this fish is its stomach, which can extend more than twice its normal size. Thanks to this expedient, it is relatively easy for him to swallow whole fish that are even much larger than him.
In fact, its prey can measure even more than double its length and 10 times its weight. It manages to swallow these large fish due to the extension of its jaw and the extension of its stomach, which after digestion returns to normal size. Sometimes the black swallower swallows fish large enough to make his stomach burst.
In the great biological variety of planet Earth, there are many other species of fish with the ability to swallow prey larger than their size. However, the black swallower beats them all.
Diet and reproduction of the black swallower
It usually feeds on other fish, we have seen, some much larger than it. It devours prey by stretching its mouth and pushing them towards its stomach, which can enlarge depending on the size of the prey.
The black swallower can eat fish up to 10 times their size, which is quite surprising for such a small fish. It takes weeks for it to digest its prey. For this reason, he remains vulnerable for a long time, as his stomach remains very stretched and can be torn apart by an animal more deadly than him.
The females of the black swallower are much larger than the males. To procreate, the female is held by the male thanks to her large jaw. Its reproduction is oviparous, that is, it occurs through the production of eggs, which are swept away by the sea currents. Juveniles of the black swallower acquire their characteristic color as they grow.
