Elusive fish that ‘walks’ on fins and eats stuff twice its size recorded near Florida

Something that resembled a “large rock” on the sea floor west of the Florida Keys turned out to be a seldom encountered fish that uses its fins for walking, according to explorers with NOAA.

Video of the encounter was posted Tuesday on Facebook and NOAA identified the chubby creature as a Schaefer’s Anglerfish, or goosefish.

It was seen about 3,100 feet down, sitting regally atop a pile of rocks.

“While we do encounter anglerfish in our deep-ocean exploration, this particularly species is not as well known,” NOAA wrote, calling the sighting “a treat.”

“Its modified fins ... act much like feet, allowing it to ‘walk’ on the seafloor,” the researchers said.

The video, recorded Nov. 19, shows the bulbous goosefish waiting for its next meal to swim by, in a spot 58 miles southwest of the Dry Tortugas. That’s a group of islands 70 miles west of Key West.

NOAA researchers say they were exploring the area because it features a curious plateau surrounded by limestone blocks that “resemble pieces of ice calved from an iceberg.”

“From a distance, we thought it (the goosefish) was a rock and imagine if you were a fish, a small fish, you wouldn’t even know,” explorers say in the video.

“He can eat things almost twice his size ... He’s just going to sit and wait until something yummy comes along and he’s just going to gulp it up.”

The back fins on a goosefish are on the underside of its body and are flat and “very foot like,” the video notes.

“They were previously thought to be vary rare, but once more exploration started happening in the environment ... they became increasingly more known,” the video reports.

More than 200 species of anglerfish are known to exist — some more than 3 feet long — and many “live in the dark depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans,” NOAA says.

Many of the species “have very large mouths filled with sharp teeth” and can survive a mile deep, according to a NOAA report.

This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 1:56 PM.