Spooky Season is upon us and this year, instead of the traditional spiders, snakes, and bats, I decided to take a look at some of the Lovecraftian horrors from our deep oceans. Although not typically associated with Halloween the deep ocean is one of the eeriest, most alien, and inhospitable habitats on the planet. It is an environment of perpetual darkness, near-freezing temperatures, immense water pressure, and no plant life. The creatures that live here have evolved into bizarre living nightmares with strange adaptations in order to survive in this unlikely environment. No deep sea animal is perhaps more familiar than the anglerfish, and it’s with one of those that we’ll kick off Spooky Season.
The anglerfish we’re looking at today was produced in 1997 by Safari Ltd. as part of their Creatures of the Deep Collection. The CotD Collection is a set of 6 glow-in-the-dark fish figures that were all released in 1997 and have long since been retired. I’ve already reviewed the gulper eel from this set and a walk-around of the hatchetfish was transferred to the blog from the forum. My plan this October is to cover the rest of the set.
Safari Ltd. doesn’t market this anglerfish at the species level, but it appears to be a humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii), a species of black sea devil from the Melanocetidae family. The humpback anglerfish is one of the most well known anglerfish species. It appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in their 1995 “Mysteries of the Deep” issue and footage of one swimming near the surface went viral on the internet this past spring. It is also one of the most widespread anglerfish species and is found in the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones in all the world’s oceans.
Measured from head-to-tail the figure is 4.5” (11.43 cm) but the lower jaw juts out further than that, giving the model a total length of 5” (12.7 cm). Female humpback anglerfish reach 7” (18 cm) while males reach 1.14” (2.9 cm). Males lack teeth and a lure but unlike some anglerfish species do not fuse to the females, instead dying shortly after breeding. Scaled down from 4.5” the figure comes out to be 1/1.5 in scale.
The figure cleverly rests on its flattened lower jaw which is open and displays numerous pointed teeth. The head is large, and the body is wrinkled, scaleless, and gelatinous in appearance. The body should be covered in minute skin spines but aside from some on the head they’re otherwise absent. The figure does have an illicium (rod) and esca (lure) which in nature is a modified dorsal spine but on mine it is broken off, a common occurrence with these toys. I plan to make my own to replace it, someday. A single dorsal fin is placed far back on the figure with the anal fin directly below it. There are no pelvic fins, which is accurate. The ray count on all the fins is wrong, but we won’t take the figure to task for it.
The figure is painted metallic blue green which is attractive but inaccurate. The actual fish is brown and black, but the CotD collection isn’t known for accurate paintjobs. The mouth, eye sockets, lure and adjacent bumps, and space in between the fin rays are all cream colored and glow in the dark. In life, only the esca is bioluminescent.
The Safari Ltd. anglerfish is definitely a product of its time but an otherwise decent and striking figure that should be welcome in any collection of deep sea fishes. And really, I recommend the Safari Creatures of the Deep collection as a whole. It shows up on eBay occasionally with an often hefty price tag but like most things can be found cheaper or as part of a lot with some patience.
