Pelican Eel

deep-sea · extreme animals · weird eels · ocean creatures

Enormous stretchy mouth. The pelican eel's mouth is absolutely huge compared to its body and can open so wide that it looks like a pelican's pouch. This giant mouth lets it gulp down fish and shrimp that are almost as big as itself.

Lives in the deep dark ocean. Pelican eels live thousands of feet below the surface where it's pitch black and the pressure is crushing. They're perfectly adapted to this extreme underwater world that almost no other animals can survive in.

Only one species exists. Scientists have looked at many pelican eels and found that they all belong to the same species, even though the fish has several different nicknames like gulper eel and umbrella-mouth gulper. It's the only member of its whole family.

True eel despite weirdness. For a long time, scientists thought pelican eels were so strange that they belonged in their own special group. Now we know they're actually true eels, just extremely unusual ones adapted for deep-sea life.