Feeding behaviour of lantern fishes

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

During the project of "Stock assessment of mesopelagic resources with Acoustic method", the feeding of lantern fishes was studied and it was found out that they are specified zoophagues. The most abundant of their stomach contents contain Copepods and Ostracods and with less important, the other stomach contents were Brachyuran larvae, Tintinnids, polychaeta, chaetognatha, Appendicularia, lamellibranchia, shrimp's larvae, different lchthioplanktons, crustacean appendages, juvenile squids and some other unidentified zooplanktons. The Diatoms (as a random food) were rarely found in their stomachs. Also, small and juvenile lantern fishes formed a part of their stomach contents and it proved the cannibalism behaviour of this fish. This behaviour occurs mostly during daytime but the main time of myctophid's feeding occurs during night time......