The Compleat Lophius

Lophius piscatorius hath a face upon which only a mother could bestow love. Indeed their mothers do love them but theirs is no maternal affection for they can be cannibals. However because of the dispersion of the little ones throughout the surface waters of the sea a mother is unlikely to eat her own offspring. Thus nature stops an abomination for any animal that eateth its own children shall surely go extinct.
The Lophius is brownish drabbish fish and quite flat that is squashed, unlike the fish known as flatfishes, the Pleuronectiformes of philosophers which are in fact thin fish turned upon their sides. L. piscatorius is truly flat, with eyes, mouth, nostrils and gill slits all on its upper known as the dorsal surface. It consists of head and tail with all the essential organs squashed betwixt them. Oh, but what a head: mostly mouth, filled with long thin teeth to capture and imprison its prey. L. piscatorius lies in ambush of its food using the first (front) fin ray of its dorsal fin to fish its prey. This fin ray or illicium hath a swollen end known as an esca which the fish moveth from side to side to give an impression of a small dainty swimming morsel darting in the water. When some prey fish comes to investigate, the predator will move, extend its jaw and grab its meal.

L. piscatorius is big, the largest of all the anglerfishes (the order known to philosophers as Lophiiformes) and is normally said to reach 2 m in length. However it is a quest to find those who would testify to this figure from their own experience. The table given below gives indication of the largest records I have come across for all the species of Lophius. Alas, many sports fisherman insist on using weight as a measure of the impressiveness of their catches rather than the less transient length.

Table the first. Wherein is given the largest Lophius known. All fish L. piscatorius unless otherwise stated

^{1 "}There is now being exhibited at 27 Fountain street a specimen of Lophius Piscatorius angelice, fishing frog, or sea devil which was stranded on the coast of Alderney a day or two ago. Mr Couch in his history of "Fishes of the British Islands" speaks of one measuring 5 - 6 feet in length as a large sample of the species. This specimen now exhibiting, measures 5 feet in length"

The Lophius is a bony fish and is hence unrelated to the other fish called monkfish in the British Isles, the angelshark Squatina squatina. They doth look superficially of the same kind but the keen eye will soon see the differences. For the mouth of the true monkfish is underneath its body. Presumably the similarity in names occurs because they are both flattened fishes of the benthos. I am tempted to suggest Squatina has priority for this name because if you had drunk enough the outline of this fish could just look like a monk in his habit. The two fish have been confused ever since antiquity. The colonists of the North American continent sensibly avoid any problems by calling their Lophius fishes, goosefish. Then again you would have to have imbibed much beer to think of a Lophius (of any species) looks like a goose.

Strange Things About the Lophius

An albino L. piscatorius was caught twenty miles of Plymouth (England) in 1998 A.D

They produce a huge free floating egg mass which can be over a fathom in length (the vast majority of fishes produce discrete eggs).

They have a fishing rod.

Despite being designed by nature for living on the bottom, adults are occasionally found in open water many fathoms above the sea floor.

If the Lophius seems strange to thou, then consider its cousins of the abyss.

Table the Second. The contents of these pages.