Science

Larval fish are the freakiest baby animals on the planet

Rafi Letzter
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bluefin tuna school
EcoWatch

Fish are weird, beautiful, alien things.

They move through Earth's streams, lakes, and oceans, displaying an astonishing range of colorations, forms, and lifestyles.

They also share some striking similarities to Pokemon. Hear me out — just about every fish starts off looking almost nothing like it will as an adult. Those baby, larval swimmers can be almost totally transparent or so tiny that it's hard to believe they're related to their adult forms.

Here are eight particularly bizarre (and beautiful) examples.

A 'leptocephalus,' or larval eel, looks like a clear plastic ribbon. Below is a conger eel.

Leptocephalus Conger
Leptocephalus larva of a conger eel Wikimedia commons

Here's what the conger eel looks like as an adult

Conger_oceanicus
NOAA Photo Library

The baby moray eel is even more dramatic-looking.

Here's what an adult moray looks like.

moray eel
Wikimedia commons

Swordfish larvae look like bizarre tiny cartoons of their future selves.

baby swordfish juan c levesque 1
Marine biologist Juan C, Levesque

The adults, meanwhile, are giant, sharp-nosed behemoths.

Xiphias_gladius_Essawira_Morocco swordfish
L. Mahin CC BY 3.0

Black dragonfish larvae look like freaky worms with glowing eyes.

dragonfish
Carole Baldwin. http://www.mnh.si.edu/expeditions/galapagos/larval-dragonfish.htm

As an adult, those eye stalks disappear and the dragonfish winds up looking like, well, a dragon.

Idiacanthus_atlanticus dragonfish
GM. Woodward - Fishes, Public Domain

A larval lionfish is actually pretty normal-looking, all things considered...

Lionfish baby
NOAA

...until you realize what it turns into as an adult.

1280px Pterois_volitans_Manado e_edit
Jens Petersen/Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY 2.5

Salmon larvae look almost like tadpoles.

Atlantic_salmon_redd
E. Peter Steenstra/U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region

Here's the much more familiar look of an Atlantic salmon as an adult

shutterstock_615657503
Shutterstock

Ocean Sunfish, or Mola Mola, grow to become the heaviest bony fish in the world. But when they hatch, they're barely more than 2 millimeters long (and even more sun-like).

ocean sunfish
G. David Johnson

Check out what that tiny thing grows into.

 

Not all fish start out looking so weird, though. When great white shark babies, known as pups, are born (not hatched), they are fairly large and look a lot like they will as adults. This video excerpt shows a juvenile great white during a tagging mission.

(Full video)

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