The lionfish is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bizarro fish. From a green-eyed creature with a snout that senses its prey's heartbeats to a bat-fish that appears to be wearing red lipstick to a scorpionfish that uses its ugly mug to hide amongst beds of seaweed.
This creature's looks earned it the name ghost shark, but it's actually a fish that falls into the chimaera, or ratfish, group.
This species of ratfish is known as the pointy-nosed blue chimaera. It was videotaped by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's remotely operated vehicle Tiburon near the summit of Davidson Seamount, off the coast of Central California at a depth of about 1 mile (1,640 meters).
Starburst of Color
Because it's a relatively uncommon fish that inhabits the open ocean, little is known about its life cycle. In adolescence, lancetfish are hermaphrodites (having both male and female sex organs), though there's no evidence of adult hermaphrodites.
The cannibal fish can grow to be as long as 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length. Lancetfish generally feed at night, and in addition to dining on other lancetfish, they also eat crustaceans, squid and smaller species of fish.