{"id":929290,"date":"2026-10-11T18:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T18:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/929290\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T18:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T18:24:11","slug":"a-little-fish-in-the-deep-sea-swallowed-a-meal-way-bigger-than-itself-scientists-caught-it-on-camera-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/929290\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Fish in The Deep Sea Swallowed a Meal Way Bigger Than Itself. Scientists Caught It on Camera. : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s always a bigger fish in the sea.<\/p>\n

For most of us, that idiom is a warning \u2013 but for one little swimmer in the deep, it’s a blessing.<\/p>\n

The black swallower fish (Chiasmodon niger) is a little creature that grows, on average, just 10-20 centimeters (3.9\u20137.9 in) long, and no more than a school ruler.<\/p>\n

Still, that doesn’t stop it from aiming high. This unassuming fish can gulp down prey up to ten times its mass.<\/p>\n

It’s an underdog moment for sure \u2013 like if David ate Goliath \u2013 and in a spectacularly rare event, scientists just captured it on camera.<\/p>\n

During a recent deep-sea dive<\/a> near the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, a remotely operated vehicle snapped a black swallower fish at 1,259 meters deep, lugging around a stomach so distended it looks like a sidecar.<\/p>\n

The skin is stretched almost transparent, to the point where you can actually see its internal organs and intestines.<\/p>\n

“[Black swallower fish] are notoriously rare to spot in the wild. I saw my first nearly a decade ago in the Gulf of Mexico,” says<\/a> Diva Amon from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the chief scientist of the expedition.<\/p>\n

“I never imagined I’d get a second chance. But this expedition delivered BIG.”<\/p>\n

\"AA black swallower fish (Chiasmodon niger) swims at a depth of 1,259 meters during a remotely operated vehicle dive off Trinidad and Tobago. (ROV SuBastian\/Schmidt Ocean Institute)<\/p>\n

Black swallower fish have evolved to make the most of their deep-sea environment, where food is scarce, explains Amon.<\/p>\n

They have a dislocating jaw and a stomach that stretches like a balloon. That way, if they see a tasty morsel swim along, they can swallow it whole, even if it is bigger than themselves.<\/p>\n

Like the best of us, however, black swallower fish can sometimes bite off more than they can ‘chew’.<\/p>\n

Most specimens have been found dead at the ocean’s surface.<\/p>\n

If this creature doesn’t digest its food fast enough, the meal in its distended stomach can start to decay.<\/p>\n

That releases gases that can force it to the surface, like a balloon.<\/p>\n

In one famous case<\/a> from 2007, a dead swallower fish just 19 centimeters (7.5 in) long was found in the Cayman Islands, having swallowed a snake mackerel (Gempylus serpens) measuring 86 cm (34 in) in length.<\/p>\n

That’s a meal 4.5 times its size.<\/p>\n

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution describes<\/a> the sight of this distended stomach as “a semi-transparent spare tire hanging from their bellies”.<\/p>\n

This new sighting is extra special because the fish is swimming in its natural habitat, and its stomach is much more distended than in some other live footage.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

The downside is that, deep in the ocean, it’s impossible to know what the animal actually ate.<\/p>\n

“If only we had a CT scanner at sea,” says<\/a> Amon. “The mystery of what this little guy had for lunch may never be solved.”<\/p>\n

This elusive fish and its special use of ‘swell dining’ remain poorly understood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some scientists have speculated<\/a> that the creature eats its prey tail first, slowly ‘walking’ the meal back into its belly with its unique set of hooked, backwards-pointing teeth.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately, that’s just speculation based on appearance.<\/p>\n

Who knows if we will ever see the fish in hunting action.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Rachel Garner<\/a> and edited by Peter Dockrill<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s always a bigger fish in the sea. For most of us, that idiom is a warning \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":929291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,315,66,323],"class_list":["post-929290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-msft-content","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}