Anglerfish Ancestors Once Roamed The Seafloor

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There are over 200 species of deep-sea anglerfish; some are long and thin, some are squat and round, some have fins that they use to "walk" along the sea floor, and others have huge eyes set far back into their heads. But how did all this morphological diversity first come to be? Thanks to a new anglerfish family tree, now we know.

Scientists built this evolutionary tree using genetic information from hundreds of samples and anglerfish specimens across the globe. It indicates that anglerfish originated from an ancestor that crawled along the seafloor ... and sheds new light on how experts could think about biodiversity as a whole.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	As NPR's Daily Economics Podcast, the Indicator has been asking businesses how tariffs are affecting their bottom line.
0:07.6	I paid $800,000 today.
0:09.7	You paid $800,000 in tariffs today.
0:12.1	Yes.
0:13.1	Wow.
0:13.8	And what that means for your bottom line.
0:16.4	Listen to the indicator from Planet Money.
0:18.1	Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
0:22.3	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:27.3	The first time I ever saw an anglerfish was on the big screen. It appeared first as a warm, glowing light.
0:35.9	I see a...
0:37.7	I see a light.
0:39.7	A light?
0:40.4	Yeah, over there.
0:41.9	I see it too.
0:44.8	Rising out of the dark, with bulbous eyes and pointy teeth,
0:49.7	this fish gets a villain moment in the 2003 Pixar movie Finding Nemo.
0:53.8	It's so pretty.
0:57.0	Good feelings gone.
1:02.7	And so ensues, probably the best underwater chase scene in cinematic history.
1:09.1	I remember seeing this movie in the theaters.
1:12.4	I was three in 2003.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 1 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.