Features and habitat of the macropyne
Macropinna is a mysterious fish of the ocean depths. Macropinna microstomy - small fish and, even in the most rare cases, its size does not exceed 15 cm.
Dark scales cover the main part of the body of such a creature that spends life in the depths of the ocean. On the Macroninna's photo, examining its contours, rounded, wide and large fins are clearly visible.
The eyes of the fish are tubular, the pharynx is impressive, the mouth is narrow. This inhabitant of the waters, otherwise called: smallmouth macropyne, discovered and described in the last century.
But only at the beginning of this year we managed to get photos mysterious creatures, revealing the secret of the unique details of their structure. The peculiarity is that the head is so transparent, which is not typical for any creature in this world.
It is curious to note that such a fact was not so easy to find out earlier, since there was still no equipment that clearly reflects the details of the appearance of creatures living at great depths. And the translucent fragile dome, which nature awarded this living organism, immediately collapsed at the moment of being removed from the water.
Through the transparent forehead of such an almost fantastic creature, one can in some way see the internal structure. The most interesting element of its structure is, first of all, impressive unique eyes, located in a reservoir filled with a special liquid, but not outside, like in ordinary earthly creatures, but inside the body. And on the surface of the transparent dome are only the organs of smell, which capture various changes in the surrounding world.
Makropinn is a representative of the ray-finned fish class, distributed in temperate latitudes and subtropics, meeting in the northern hemisphere in the depths The Pacific and the adjacent waters of the Bering Strait and the Sea of Okhotsk.
Such creatures are also found within the waters of Kamchatka and Japan, in the depths of the waters reaching the shores of Canada. In the opisthoproct family, to which these living organisms belong, today, according to scientists, there are about a dozen varieties.
The nature and way of life of micropinna
This animal has a different name - barrel eye for the appropriate device of the tube-shaped organs of vision, which are very useful in the environment where the life of fish living in the ocean depths under the water column from five to eight hundred meters passes.
Sun rays they penetrate little into these remote areas, which left an imprint on the visual perception of underwater creatures capable of perceiving even in pitch darkness.
The light, falling into the eyes of the fish, ignites them with bright green... The reason for this is a special substance that filters light rays. This is considered in the characteristics of such creatures as another interesting fact , but smallmouth macropyne- a creature so mysterious that with its in-depth study of secrets it only becomes more.
Fantastic inhabitants of the distant depths never cease to amaze scientists, but this is understandable, because these are creatures far from civilization and the property of a completely different world.
It is difficult for a person to remain in a hard-to-reach and dangerous environment their habitat, and they cannot exist in our world. On the great depth where they used to live, even the pressure is completely different. That is why, if you get such fish out of the water, the fragile frontal part of their head bursts from its drop.
The fin structure of the fish is also an excellent adaptation for comfortable swimming and impressive maneuvers in deep ocean waters. However, it cannot be said that such creatures show high vital activity. They are quite slow, and when swimming, they often stop and freeze in one place.
Do these almost fantastic animals have enemies? Not enough is known about this science yet, because it is very difficult to observe the details of the movement and lifestyle of these fish at the depths of the ocean.
Their paths do not intersect with the paths of man. And there is no need for them to intersect. The inhabitants of the depths do not care about people, and people, apart from curiosity and a craving for knowledge, have no practical benefit for the stomach from them either. The peculiarities of their anatomy make it difficult for humans to eat such creatures.
Macropinna nutrition
Slowness smallmouth macropinny – fish with transparent head does not prevent her from being a successful hunter. With special barrel-shaped eyes located inside the head and protected by a transparent shell, such creatures are able to perceive the world, both horizontally and vertically, which allows them to conduct successful observations of the intended prey and not miss anything from the details of its movements. If the victim has the imprudence to swim closer to such a big-eyed enemy, then he immediately turns out to be caught, finding his sad end.
During the day, such fish make regular movements, rising, albeit not over long distances, to the upper layers of the water, where they get their food, and at night they descend back.
It is not difficult to understand that aquatic hunters are predators. But they are not interested in big prey. Due to the presence of a small mouth (for which they received the name smallmouth), they have the ability to feed mainly on plankton, siphonophore tentacles, crustaceans and other small animals.
Reproduction and lifespan of macropyne
Makropinn – a fish poorly understood, as already mentioned. Scientists are just beginning to understand the unique details of the way of life of these creatures living deep in the ocean floor. The same applies to breeding methods, about which not much is understood.
But it is known for certain that the females of amazing fish spawn in large quantities... And the fry that emerged from it, at first, have an elongated body, having little resemblance to their parents. But then numerous metamorphoses begin to occur with them, until they take on the natural appearance of adults.
The difficulty of observing deep-sea animals step by step throughout their life has become a consequence of the fact that its duration is another mystery for scientists.
However, these mysterious representatives of the fauna were nevertheless managed to be placed and successfully kept in an aquarium located in California. A structure that has become a new home for mysterious fish, is considered one of the largest in the world, and it contains many amazing views aquatic fauna, housed in 93 reservoirs.
And every day amazing, fantastic and unique creatures have the opportunity to be watched by millions of curious viewers. Therefore, one can hope that soon all the secrets of the macropine will be revealed.
With a transparent head, it was perceived by ichthyologists not as a separate representative of the fish genus, but as an ugly sea creature... It is possible that it got into fishing nets earlier, but it was first described in 1939. Then the scuba divers caught it in the depths and tried to pull it out of the water to study it. But it turned out that a fish with a transparent head is unable to survive in other conditions. A transparent hollow ball covering her head bursts already in the upper layers of water.
The fishermen called her barrel-eyed. Indeed, a fish with a transparent head has eyes similar to two large cylinders compared to its body. This unique optical system is
hell high degree sensitivity and can focus on the subject very accurately. Almost a fish with a transparent head has two powerful binoculars capable of recognizing objects even in absolute darkness. Interestingly, her body is small and slightly flattened from the sides. It is only ten to twelve centimeters long, but its green eyes in a transparent bubble covering the head are pronounced and do not match with a small mouth.
Interestingly, it was only in 2004 that ichthyologists got the opportunity to study this species of fish in the world's oceans thanks to the emergence of new deep-sea technology.
With the help of such a device, a fish with a transparent head living at a considerable depth was photographed, photography and video filming made it possible to collect unique material about its habits. Therefore, today we know for sure that there are many of the same in the sea. amazing creations, and that they are all independent species of a very small family of opisthoproctal fish.
Their habitat is located at a depth of two hundred and fifty to two thousand five hundred meters. Scientists have already studied ten members of this family. It is remarkable that some of them met only in a few copies. But the heroine of our story - a fish with a transparent head - is very numerous and widespread in northern waters The Pacific Ocean. It is often found in the waters washing the shores of Kamchatka.
According to scientists, deep-sea life in northern latitudes is the reason for the lack of vitamin D in the body of fish, therefore, its skeleton is poorly developed. it is also weak, but its fins are wide and strong. Therefore, it was concluded that the smallmouth macropinna does not swim much over long distances in the horizontal direction, but obtains food for itself, maneuvering in the water column mainly vertically.
Research has confirmed this assumption. A fish with a transparent head maneuvers well while searching for food. If during the day she hunts for drifting mollusks, plunging to a depth of two kilometers, then at night it can approach the surface of the water to twenty meters depth, where her favorite jellyfish live. The transparent spherical dome of the head allows the fish to continuously observe while scanning the area. Upon detection interesting object she focuses on him and catches up with her prey.
Smallmouth Macropyne or barrel eye - only fish in the world with a transparent head. It was discovered and described in 1939 by the scientist Chapman, but photographs of live fish were obtained only in 2004. Actually, at the same time it became known about the structural features of her head, since the previously fragile transparent dome collapsed when the macropyne was removed from the water.
Smallmouth Macropyne for a long time did not allow zoologists to sleep well. Her transparent head and unusual cylindrical eyes remained a mystery to them.
Thanks to the transparent shell on the head, the fish can observe what is happening around it. But the biggest surprise came from her eyes. Taking a look at the image, guess where they are?
The holes above the mouth, which you probably initially mistook for eyes, actually turned out to be the organs of smell. And what is inside the transparent head and very much resembles 2 green hemispheres, in fact, turned out to be the eyes of a fish. They are separated by a thin bone septum.
In the light, the eyes acquire a bright green color... This is due to the content of a special yellow pigment in them, which filters the light and reduces its brightness. I would like to remind you that many deep-sea fish have poor vision. This cannot be said about the macropinna, so it should protect its eyes from the bright light that it may encounter when climbing up to the upper water column with its prey.
The bright green eyes of this small fish (it does not exceed 15 cm in length) are in a chamber of the head filled with a transparent liquid.
This chamber is covered by a dense, but at the same time, elastic transparent shell, which is attached to the scales on the body of the smallmouth macropyne. Since the smallmouth macropinny is characterized by special structure eye muscles, then its cylindrical eyes can be both in a vertical position and in a horizontal position, when the fish can look directly through its transparent head.
This way, the macropinna can spot prey both when it is in front of it and when it is floating above it. And as soon as the prey - usually zooplankton - is at the level of the fish's mouth, it quickly grabs it.
Despite the fact that a lot has been learned about it since the discovery of this amazing fish, it still remains poorly understood. This is largely due to the fact that the smallmouth macropinna lives at very great depths. Typically, this fish is found at a depth of 500 to 800 meters, however, it is believed that it can live at much deeper.
Macropina spends most of the time motionless, or slowly moving in water. Until recently, it was believed that the peculiarity of the structure of her eyes is such that the fish cannot rotate them. However, this turned out to be only partly true. Floating horizontally, her eyes always point upward, straight through the transparent dome. Noticing prey above itself, the macro-pine has to take a vertical position in the water so that the eyes turn forward. After that, she can control the process of absorbing prey, that is, she knows at what time to open her mouth.
Though smallmouth macropina is a predator, it cannot catch prey large enough for its size. This is due to the fact that it has a small mouth and few teeth. Therefore, the fish is content with small fish, crustaceans, and tentacles of poisonous siphonophores. It is possible that the emergence of a transparent dome covering the eyes is just an evolutionary device for protection against poisonous tentacles their prey.
The world learned about this fish only in 1939, when it accidentally fell into fishing nets. Its study and primary description took up William Chapman. But due to the deep-sea habitat, it was not possible to study this fish in more detail, and you can take little from one sample. In addition to this, with a sharp change in pressure (from depth to surface), its transparent shell, which protects the eyes, was torn.
And only in 2004, scientists managed to see this fish in their natural environment habitat at depth. This became possible thanks to scientists from Research Institute the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the ROVs, which filmed the video and captured the first images of the transparent-headed fish.
The body of this small fish, 10 - 15 centimeters long, covered with dark scales. Despite the large pharynx, the mouth opening of the fish is quite narrow, which is why it has to monitor the size of the prey. When swimming in a horizontal position, the fish's tubular eyes are always directed upward. Thus, she looks out for her prey in the upper layers.
And after 5 years, in 2009, they also managed to catch several specimens of fish and observe their behavior in a special aquarium. And here are the results the scientists came to. It turns out that the fish's tubular eyes can rotate. This happens during hunting, when the fish, having noticed prey, positions its body vertically.
Various crustaceans, tentacles of siphonophores, cnidarians and other zooplankton were found in their stomachs. Slowly swimming in the water column, the fish looks up. As soon as she notices above her tasty, then swims under it and moves the body vertically to grab the prey. At this moment, her eyes move 90 °, leaving the prey in sight.
Judging by the fact that she has to deal with the poisonous stinging tentacles of the siphonophore, the integuments of this fish are immune to their poison, and the eyes are reliably protected by a transparent shell.
Fish with a transparent head inhabits the subarctic and temperate waters of the Pacific Ocean: the Kuril Islands, northern Japan, the Bering Sea, the western coast of Canada and the United States, as well as in the region of the Gulf of California.
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Representatives of the fauna never cease to amaze scientists and ordinary people with a variety of shapes, sizes, colors and devices for survival in different conditions a habitat. Among a large number amazing inhabitants marine environment an unusual fish attracts attention - the Smallmouth Macropinna. Its second name is barrel-eye, which gives some idea of appearance this deep sea fish... Due to the habitat of the barrel-eyed, this species of fish has been little studied by scientists and is of great interest.
Despite the fact that this species of fish was discovered in the first half of the twentieth century, scientists for a long time could not seriously study it. The problem was that the macropyne is a fish that nature has rewarded with a transparent head. This is the only whim of Mother Nature of this kind on the whole earth. All attempts to extract the barrel-eye from the water for detailed study ended ingloriously: with a pressure drop, the transparent dome simply burst.
And only ten years ago, scientists received clear photographs of macropinna, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the lifestyle, habits, reproduction of an unusual inhabitant of deep water, based on the structure of the body. The pictures were taken with the supplied remote control... It was these studies that made it possible for ordinary people to find out how the macropyne lives in its natural habitat.
How an unusual fish moves
The macropinous body, compressed from the sides, is small in size, and in its shape resembles a torpedo or a pill. The body is covered with black scales, the fins are rounded and slightly shifted towards the back of the body. The structure of the body and fins is such that the fish has the ability to "hang" in one place for a long time. This is also evidenced by the weak development of muscles, which scientists explain by the lack of vitamin D. The nature of the fish implies imposing, unhurried movement, and even immobility. But in the case when Macropinn is needed high speed, it presses the fins to the body and actively moves with the help of the caudal fin. When a fish develops a high speed, it has high clear maneuverability, which is very important for fish that live at great depths, where prey is, unfortunately, not often found.
Due to the habitat, and this great depths in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, where very little light penetrates, macropinna possesses unique ability see in pitch darkness.
Unique Macropinny Eyes - Hunting Aid
The eyes of this fish species are of the greatest interest. They are located inside the transparent dome and have a green color that gives them the corresponding pigment. This pigment dims the light by filtering it out. The complex structure of the eye suggests that they play a huge role in the life of a fish. The fish's eyes are separated by a bony septum. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the macropyne can see inside its transparent head in different directions. While the fish swims in a horizontal direction, its tubular eyes look up, which makes it possible to search for prey. Due to the fact that the macropyne lives at great depths, most food objects are located directly above it, and this function of the eyes becomes especially important.
But as soon as the macropinna sees its prey, it assumes an upright stance, which provides a “look ahead” and allows it to get food. On the head, on the front, there are false eyes, which, in fact, serve as the organs of smell. Between the cylindrical eyes and the mouth there are special pockets in which various receptors are located. The transparent chamber itself is filled with a special substance that protects against the effects of adverse factors.
Interesting facts about fish with a transparent head
- The name "smallmouth" this fish is not accidental: the size of the mouth is really small and, despite the fact that the macropinna is a predator, the size of the prey is rather limited: small fish, crustaceans.
- During the day, representatives of this species of fish make regular migrations to the upper layers of the waters in order to get food. At night, the fish return to depth. The ascent to the surface layers is evidenced by the facts that representatives of this class of fish were repeatedly caught by fishermen at a small size.
- In the process of breeding, the females of the macropinous sweep great amount eggs. At the beginning life cycle fry have a long body shape and are not at all like their parents. However, in the process of development, they undergo numerous morphological changes and become those adults who are so interested in scientists.
To date, scientists have identified about ten representatives of this family of fish. Most of them live in the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean. They are quite numerous off the coast of Kamchatka, in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Strait.
Representatives of the fish family with a transparent head are represented in the aquarium located in California. This aquarium is one of the largest structures in the world and has 93 reservoirs that contain these unusual fish... This aquarium is considered one of the most visited in the world, and every year about two million people come here on excursions.
Smallmouth Macropyne or barrel eye- the only fish in the world with a transparent head. It was discovered and described in 1939 by the scientist Chapman, but photographs of live fish were obtained only in 2004. Actually, at the same time it became known about the structural features of her head, since the previously fragile transparent dome collapsed when the macropyne was removed from the water.
The area of distribution of the barrel-eye is the temperate and subarctic waters of the Pacific Ocean in the northern hemisphere, where fish are found at a depth of 500 to 800 meters. Very little breaks through the water column to such a depth. sunlight... Therefore, the eyes of the fish are arranged in a special way to be able to see in almost total darkness. 
The body shape of the smallmouth macropina resembles a black-colored pill, with the exception of the transparent head and the same transparent tail. Anal and dorsal fins are displaced closer to the back of the body, and are large in size, which allows the macropine to literally hang in the water column in one place for a long time. When it is necessary to move quickly, the fish presses all the fins to the body and works intensively with its tail.
The only video with a live smallmouth makropinny
If you look at this amazing marine life in front, then one gets the impression that he has eyes. In fact, this is not the case, since the eyes of the fish are located inside the transparent dome, and are green due to the presence of pigment. The "false" eyes on the head are nothing more than an organ of smell, similar to the human nose. 
Macropina spends most of the time motionless, or slowly moving in water. Until recently, it was believed that the peculiarity of the structure of her eyes is such that the fish cannot rotate them. However, this turned out to be only partly true. Floating horizontally, her eyes always point upward, straight through the transparent dome. Noticing prey above itself, the macro-pine has to take a vertical position in the water so that the eyes turn forward. After that, she can control the process of absorbing prey, that is, she knows at what time to open her mouth. 
Though smallmouth macropina is a predator, it cannot catch prey large enough for its size. This is due to the fact that it has a small mouth and few teeth. Therefore, the fish is content with small fish, crustaceans, and tentacles of poisonous siphonophores. It is possible that the emergence of a transparent dome that closes the eyes is just an evolutionary device for protection from the poisonous tentacles of its prey.
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