Gray Wolves and Trumpeter Swans as well as many other animals in the animal kingdom are said to mate for life. In many ways this is true.

Trumpeter Swans will pick a mate and remain with that mate until one dies, they will then seek another mate whose spouse has also died.

In the case of Gray Wolves, they too choose a mate and sometimes more than one. Although they stay with their mate, they are also known to stray on occasion especially when females outnumber males and the food source is good.

However, there is one animal that literally becomes so attached to his mate that her death means his death as well. The male Anglerfish.

The Anglerfish lives deep beneath the sea, where no light is found. The female is only about 5 inches long, the male is much smaller, about the size of a human little finger.

Shaped much like a baseball with long sharp like fangs for teeth the Anglerfish has an elongated dorsal spine that supports a light producing organ called a photophore. The blue green light emitted by the photophore lures prey close to the Anglerfish where they then snap it up and swallow it whole. The Anglerfish can consume prey twice their own size.

As the male Anglerfish begins to mature his digestive system begins to degenerate. When this happens he must find a female mate. Once he does he bites her and then releases an enzyme that disolves the skin of her body and skin of his mouth fusing the two fish together.

He then becomes permanently attached to his mate. His life is now totally dependent on her. He gets his nutrients and food through what she eats, and his life is span is dependent on her ability to survive.

Sometimes the female Anglerfish will have as many as 6 males attached to her. In return for her keeping them alive she is assured of fertilization for her eggs.

It is nature’s way of insuring the continuation of life for the many species of Anglerfish and it is truly a mating for life.