Tasselled Anglerfish, Rhycherus filamentosus

Plate 123. The Two-Pronged Toad-fish, Chironectes bifurcatus (now known as the Tasselled Anglerfish, Rhycherus filamentosus) found in Brighton

None of the other species described by Cuvier, the French Voyagers, Richardson, Count Castelnau, Dr. Bleeker, or Dr. Günther, resemble this species at all, and it is the only species of the genus I have as yet met with on our shores.

These beautiful and curious fish are found occasionally after strong south winds on the Brighton shore in summer in the shallow pools on the rocks. They are very soft and extensible, blowing themselves up like a balloon, as the Diodon does, when alarmed. The pedunculated pectoral and ventral fins look to the popular observer like fore feet or legs, and are used like them for moving amongst sea-weed, in which they crawl like toads; the very small gill aperture, opening on the arm-pit of the pectoral fins, keeping the gills moist for so long a time that they seem almost amphibious in the habit of moving about out of the water between the tides.

This species has not been figured before.