THE DEEP SEA'S LIVING GHOST

❃ The long-nosed chimaera looks like something dreamed up from several animals at once—a fitting member of a group named after the mythical Chimera. Its most distinctive feature is an elongated, flexible snout packed with sensory receptors that help it locate prey across the dark seafloor. With enormous eyes, wing-like pectoral fins, and a long tapering tail, these eerie fish seem almost built for another world.

❃ Despite their shark-like appearance, chimaeras aren't actually sharks. They belong to an ancient lineage of cartilaginous fishes that split from the ancestors of modern sharks and rays hundreds of millions of years ago. Long-nosed chimaeras spend much of their lives in deep water, where they use their sensitive snouts to detect small crustaceans, worms, mollusks, and other prey hiding on or beneath the seafloor.

❃ Life in the deep demands some unusual adaptations. Long-nosed chimaeras glide through the darkness using their large pectoral fins almost like underwater wings, while their oversized eyes gather what little light reaches their habitat. Like other chimaeras, they also possess a defensive venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin. Ancient, elusive, and wonderfully strange, the long-nosed chimaera is proof that some of the ocean's most extraordinary creatures are still hiding far below the surface.