Tube Eye (Stylephorus chordatus)

The Tube Eye fish or Stylephorus chordatus is a rarely seen deep sea fish. This fish is very long! Its body grows to about 28cm in length, but it has a strange pair of tail fins that triple its length! Like some other deep sea fish, the Tube Eye fish has unbelievably large telescopic eyes that jut out of its head. This fish is a nocturnal feeder, that comes up from the depths everyday to feed on plankton. They have a very strange method of feeding. The Tube Eye uses its balloonable mouth cavity to expand to 38 times its original size as the fish sucks in seawater through its tubular mouth, as if through a straw. Once filled, the mouth closes and the fish forces the water back out through its gills, leaving behind just the plankton.


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