The big sun it’s a fishing ground located in the Atlantic Ocean, between parallels 48 and 60, to the west of the United Kingdom. Its name comes from Grande Solethat means big flounder. Since ancient times it has been famous, in equal parts, for its feared storms and for its fishing wealth. The fleets of «gransoleros», made up of longliners, trawlers and flyers, in search of hake, monkfish and rooster.
Of all of them, without a doubt, the monkfish is the least graceful fish. It belongs to the lophiiforme order and includes sixteen families and more than fifty genera. The most common in our kitchens white monkfish (Lophius piscatorius) and the black monkfish (Lophius budegassa), which are differentiated by the color of their peritoneum, the membrane that surrounds the intestine.
Ugly. clever and cunning
The anglerfish is a voracious predator that lives in deep water and unmistakable in appearance due to its flattened head and conical body. Despite being a succulent fish, with compact and tasty meat, it is striking that it did not appear in Spanish cookbooks until the second decade of the 20th century. And it is that his unattractive appearance was a deterrent to consumption and made it part of the discard fish.
The English have baptized him as «anglerfish» –fishing fish- because it has an elongated and highly maneuverable dorsal spine that supports an organ known as illition. This appendage is key to its survival, since through a process of bioluminiscenciain which numerous bacteria participate, generates a light used as a lure to attract their prey.
During the “fishing” process the monkfish remains motionless waving only his appendix, as if from a Rod concerned, until the loot gets close enough, at which point it grabs it in its powerful jaws and gobbles it up.
Once inside the mouth, the prey is unable to escape since the monkfish has some sharp teeth – which has led to it also being known as sea devil– arranged with certain inward angulation from the mouth A curious method of fishing that was already described in antiquity by Aristotle.
male parasitism
Their reproduction is also extremely unique within the animal kingdom. From the outset there is a marked sexual dimorphism, the male being much smaller than the female -up to ten times-, it is black color and lacks the characteristic lure.
When the male reaches the stage of maturity, his digestive system degenerates, making it totally impossible for him to feed. At that point you only have two options left: starve or locate a female to feed him the rest of his life. Obviously, he opts for the latter.
The female, which can reach more than a meter in length, helps him leaving a hormonal traill (pheromones) unequivocal. When you locate it stick to it with the help of small hook-shaped teeth, after which it releases enzymes that dissolve the skin of its mouth and part of the female’s body, so that syour blood vessels join and both are merged. In this way the male, turned into a parasite, will spend the rest of his life feeding on the female.
It is not unusual that shetransport» simultaneously several males in her body, a journey that will eventually pay off. And, thanks to this, when the female is ready to spawn, she instantly has the male’s genetic material at her whim, since the gonads are the only part of her anatomy that does not atrophy.
To finish two more singularities, the monkfish is capable of greatly distend your stomachbeing able to swallow prey up to twice its size, and its pancreas it was achieved make the first insulin of history Why doesn’t he look so ugly anymore?