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Animal profile

Stoplight Loosejaw

Malacosteus niger

ActinopterygiiMesopelagic and bathypelagic waters, roughly 500 to 2,000 metres

Field profile

The stoplight loosejaw is a small barbeled dragonfish with an open lower jaw lacking a floor of skin, and two light organs beneath each eye, one red and one green. It reaches about 25 centimetres. It eats copepods to an unusual degree for a fanged predator.

Scope note

This is an editorial profile, not a diagnostic field-identification guide or a substitute for current conservation assessments. Follow the cited sources on each fact for the evidence trail.

Published field notes

2023-09-09

Stoplight Loosejaw

The loosejaw borrows chlorophyll to see red

Almost no deep-sea animal can see red light, which makes the stoplight loosejaw's red searchlight private. To detect its own beam, the fish uses a retinal pigment derived from chlorophyll it cannot have made itself.

Read with evidence →

Stoplight Loosejaw | Daily Animal Facts