An anglerfish is a bizarre deep-sea fish that hunts by dangling a glowing lure in front of its mouth. Picture a fish swimming in the pitch-black ocean depths with what looks like a tiny fishing rod growing out of its head, tipped with a light that glows in the darkness. When curious prey swim close to investigate the mysterious light, the anglerfish's huge jaws snap open and swallow them whole.

Most anglerfish live thousands of feet below the ocean's surface, where sunlight never reaches and the pressure would crush an unprotected human. Down there, finding food is incredibly difficult, so the anglerfish has evolved one of nature's strangest hunting strategies: it doesn't chase its meals, it lures them in. The glowing tip of its “fishing rod” contains bacteria that produce light through a chemical reaction, creating what scientists call bioluminescence.

Female anglerfish can grow as large as a basketball, with mouths full of needle-sharp teeth and bodies that look like something from a scary movie. The anglerfish reminds us that Earth's oceans still hold creatures stranger than anything we could imagine, thriving in places so extreme they seem like alien worlds.