Anoplogaster cornuta and other ultra-black fish were found to absorb 99.5 percent of all light that hits them, thanks to the melanin in their skin Karen Osborn, Smithsonian 3 / 6 ...

A team of marine biologists has discovered 16 species of "ultra-black" fish that absorb more than 99% of the light that hits their skin, making them virtually invisible to other deep-sea fish.

Using different tests, modeling and comparisons to other cold-blooded animals, the scientists found that black fish absorbed more than 99.5% of the light that hit their skin — in other words ...

“It’s nearly impossible to get good photographs of these really black deep sea fish. They seem to suck up all the light no matter how you set up your flashes or camera settings,” she say ...

It turns out, the skin of the fish was simply unphotogenic—the tissue was absorbing a whooping 99.5 percent of the camera’s light. Other ultra-black animals, like birds-of-paradise ...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year reported a material that reflects only 0.005 percent of light. The ultra-black fish aren’t quite that black, but they may well be the blackest ...

Yet when she put the fangtooth in front of the camera, it turned into a living black hole—the outline was there, but not the fine details, as if the fish was devouring light. “I was trying to ...

Photograph by Sonke Johnsen To absorb all that light, it's not enough to have tons of black pigment, Johnsen says. The key is the skin's surface. If a fish's skin is simple and smooth, light ...

a type of black seadevil. The scary-looking fish is usually found in water depths of 1,500 meters, where little to no sunlight reaches and where it uses its bioluminescent light to attract its prey.