My name is Victoria Likholyot. I'm a photographer from Kharkiv, Ukraine. My project called 'in the darkness' inspired by Cerartiidae fish.
Cerartiidae fish developed a peculiar way of reproduction. Male species significantly differ from females. They’re much smaller and don’t possess the features females to do: big head with menacingly large and sharp teeth and distinctive ‘fishing rod’ with luminescent ‘fishing lure’ at its end. Males have well-developed eyes and olfactory organs that come in handy when searching for a female’s pheromones in the vast and dark deepness of sea. When a female is finally found, a male attaches its mouth to the female’s body. The female then produces a special chemical substance that ‘melts’ the male’s mouth making the attachment permanent. The male becomes a part of it’s ‘betrothed’ for the rest of their lives. In time, the male’s eyes and intestines get atrophied and it becomes the female’s sperm-producing appendage receiving nutrition through the female’s blood circulatory system. The biological goal of this phenomenon, supposedly, is to make finding a breeding partner a bit easier in the scarcely populated and food-limited deepsea environment.