It may have massive jaws, but the gulper eel’s ultra-black skin ensures it remains well hidden in the depths of the ocean
Compared with the enormous size of their jaws, gulper eels (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), also known as pelican eels, have one of the tiniest skulls of any animal. The enormous jaws allow them to swallow whatever prey they happen upon in the vast space of the deep sea, where food is hard to come by.
“The upper and lower jaw are so big that when its mouth is closed and folded up it’s almost half the length of its body,” says Yi-Kai Tea, a Chadwick Biodiversity Fellow at the Australian Museum in Sydney. “The head is right at the tip.”
The metre-long gulper eels live at depths of more than 7km under the surface, although typically they are found in the midnight zone at about 1,000 metres. Their jaws unfold to immense dimensions, like an umbrella.
