Barreleye Fish

The Barreleye fish does not have a barrel for an eye but is a fish so the marine biologists were only half lying with that name. The fish instead has barrel shaped eyes that are usually looking above it, usually looking for the silhouettes of prey however it can look straight and does do that whenever it wants to see its prey. The barreleye is also known as the spookfish but that's also a family of fish in it of itself so we are going to continue to refer to this fish as the barreleye. Now I'm sure you've noticed one small detail about the fish and it's the fact that half of it's head is transparent, kinda hard to miss actually. The fish is rumored to steal food from siphonophores and the transparent head is believed to be a defense against their nematocysts or stinging cells. Alternatively, the transparent head is also believed to improve the fish's vision, with it allowing for light to enter the fish's eyes with ease. Apparently the head also allows it to refract light with an index very close to seawater which I'm sure allows the fish to traverse the sea with ease. Apparently the fish doesn't have any teeth which is why it mainly just feeds on tiny little critters like zooplankton and baby jellyfish. The barreleye can also glow, dimly but it does have organs on its underbelly that allow for it to glow. More interestingly, the only reason they can actually glow is because of symbiotic bioluminescent bacteria. Even even more interestingly, between the two Opisthoproctus species (a form of barreleye) the bacteria found on them were slightly different. The fish is spineless, not actually but the fins are. The fins are spineless because the fish mainly just stay there. Completely in place, waiting for its prey, not a care in the world. Having bones on its fins wouldn't really do anything for it and would cause the incredibly hard task of sitting there to be harder as the extra weight would hurt them. The fish lives just below the limit of light penetration, allowing for their hyper-sensitive eyes to see its prey above it. The fish is a pelagic reproducer, meaning that it shoots its sperm and eggs into the ocean. Overall, the barreleye fish is a pretty interesting fish, still no barrel though.