October 15th, 2008 
The only thing more absurd than a fish walking on stilts is a fish walking on stilts with a rubber chicken, I always say. The tripod fish Bathypterois is a deep-sea stilt-walking simultaneous hermaphrodite. Its truly absurd. The kinky lifestyle pays off, too, because they are a successful group widespread throughout the deep-sea to 5600m depth.
These would be awesome in an aquarium display. Like a Dali painting. But they would be tough to feed. Bathypterois aka spiderfish preys on small copepods and pelagic crustaceans. They are not visual predators. Their “enormously elongated” pectoral rays sense vibrations in the water column. Such big rays more than make-up for those beady little eyes, I suppose.
Both male and female gonads mature at the same time in the same animal. Mates are sparse, according to the BBC Blue Planet website, rarely encountered. But “if all else fails, one tripod fish can potentially reproduce on its own by fertilising its own eggs.” Hmm. I wonder if they have that on film. – PJE
Images from Planete-energies.com and Kochi University.
Now that is cool. You deep sea guys get all the cool fish ;)
Wow, I have never laid eyes upon such a creature. Incredibly strange and beautiful. I prefer the live image on the left :).
Is there any video of them actually feeding out there? I’ve seen a few different video bits, but always either moving along (escaping the big SpongeBob ROV?) or stationary. Never feeding.
The video at the Serpent Project was the only short video I found online. It has the camera down looking, no obvious feeding.
http://archive.serpentproject.com/722/
Nice…, but it is still strange why they walk on stilt-like fins.
What are they for?
I don’t think they walk on them – they prop themselves up off the ocean floor. Often seen facing into whatever week current is down there with those fantastic pectoral fins spread out forward like a trumpet. The thick fin ray has a nerve running diown it & they’re picking up whatever faint disturbences various little invertebrates & fishes make……It’s a long time between drinks down there :-)