Fish
Lanternfish
Myctophum punctatum
Harmless🌊 10–700 m📏 up to 15 cm⏳ up to 2 yearsIUCN status: Not evaluated
Epipelagic zone · Mesopelagic zone
One of the most abundant fish in the ocean: every night it rises from the depths to feed near the surface, then dives back at dawn — a planet-wide daily migration.
🗺️ Geographic range
Found in most of the world's oceans, particularly abundant in the North Atlantic.
📊 Population
Not individually evaluated by the IUCN, but considered one of the most abundant fish on the planet by total biomass (an estimated several hundred million tonnes across all lanternfish species combined).
Habitat
- Atlantic Ocean · High seas / open water · Mesopelagic zone · Migration
🥚 Reproduction
Spawns in open water; eggs and larvae are planktonic.
Behaviour
- Diet
- Zooplankton and small crustaceans, caught mostly at night near the surface.
- Hunting
- Migrates vertically every day to follow the abundance of food.
- Communication
- Uses photophores both to camouflage and potentially to communicate.
- Social life
- Forms immense schools detected by sonar, known as the deep scattering layer.
Physiology
- Anatomy
- Photophores arranged along the flanks and belly.
- Respiration
- Standard bony-fish gills.
- Vision
- Large eyes adapted to the dim light of the twilight zone.
- Adaptations
- Counter-illumination: ventral light mimics the residual daylight to disappear from the sight of predators looking up from below.
🔗 Web of marine life
⚡ Its extraordinary abilities
- Counter-illumination: its photophores mimic daylight to make it invisible from below
- Undertakes one of the planet's largest animal migrations by biomass, every single day
If you cross paths with this animal…
Risk: None.
Behaviour: Flees toward the depths when a predator or a light approaches.
Advice: A keystone species of the ocean food chain, underpinning the diet of many predators.
💡 Did you know?
- Shoals of lanternfish form a layer long detected by military sonar and mistaken for a false ocean floor.
- May represent one of the largest fish biomasses in the world's oceans.
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