No one can be indifferent when they first see this fish, no longer alive, but in a photo. The snout of this amorphous, jelly-like creature seems to have been created out of boredom, for boredom, and in the name of boredom. Wide open eyes, wide mouth, sadly thick “nose” (in fact, of course, this is not a nose, but it creates the impression) – all this combined together can arouse desire in even the most cheerful people.

A stocked fish was “discovered” (meaning it was first described and classified) in 1926, when Australian fishermen provided specimens of their catch to zoologists. The fish was deemed inedible, consigned to the annals of zoology and left alone. In addition, the released fish itself does not at all want to attract people’s attention, because it lives at a depth of more than six hundred meters, and feels uncomfortable near the surface where the pressure of the water column is low.

Because it lives at great depths, the drop fish has developed a number of devices that help it survive quite comfortably in the depths of the ocean. First, it doesn’t have a swimming bladder, because with such high pressure it’s useless. Second, stock fish have almost no muscles and mainly swim with the current. She doesn’t chase food, food comes (or rather, swims) to her. Her diet consists mainly of plankton and she receives food simply by opening her mouth. Small crustaceans swim in their mouths.

The stock fish is a good mother and cares for her children no less than a mother hen does for her chicks. Marking the eggs, she “incubates” it – like an egg, and when the little “drops” “hatch” out of the eggs, she takes care of them, finds quiet places for them, “ kindergarten” – in the terminology of zoologists. See that they grow up in peace and security. However, at such depths, she has practically no natural enemies.

The main enemy of fish release is humans. No, no one casts a net at a specific fish. It gets caught in the net when fishermen cast trawls in the deep sea to catch lobsters or crabs.

Although stock fish has been known to people for less than a hundred years and is considered inedible, there are also “gourmets” who consider this deep-sea “jelly” to be a wonderful delicacy. . According to some reports, in Japan, China and Southeast Asian countries there are many rich people willing to pay a lot of money for the inhabitants of the ocean floor. However, this is not surprising if we recall the modern Chinese saying that a good chef can cook everything that crawls in the fields, except tractors, everything that flies in the sky, except Except for airplanes and everything floating on the bottom of the sea. sea, except for underwater vessels.

What it looks like in its natural habitat, at a depth of six hundred to twelve hundred meters, is unknown. The released fish did not leave her photo. And to do that in the near future is difficult to succeed. But on shore or on a fishing boat, she looks extremely unattractive. Stocked fish are mainly found off the coast of Australia, but individual specimens are caught in all oceans except the Arctic. At great depths, fish live, their photos and names are still waiting to be published on the pages of encyclopedias and textbooks. The depths of the ocean are still very little studied.

Due to incorrect fishing of marine arthropods and the close attention of Asian gourmets, stocked fish are in danger of extinction. Would a person’s acquaintance with this unusual fish be so short – less than a hundred years? The history of the relationship between humans and nature shows that this is not unusual. This happened many times. For example, Steller’s cow was culled just 27 years after opening. But somehow I didn’t want the fish to fall, this sad miracle would suffer the same fate.