Thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface, she waits for her prey, her bioluminescent lure glowing with the light of millions of bacteria. Her thin, black jelly-like skin doesn’t reflect a spec of light. It camouflages her from unsuspecting predators of the deep abyss. She opens wide and lunges, extending her flexible jaws around a lantern fish twice her size. Her thin, sharp teeth crunch down on a meal fit for two. Not for her and her child, but for her mate fused to her belly.

Mankind often draws parallels between the relationships of creatures and humans in order to gain a better understanding of the birds and the bees. The untold story of the anglerfish is no exception. “Here is something interesting,” says Kathryn Wiese, oceanography instructor at City College San Francisco. “This is an anglerfish,” she says, pointing to the alien-looking fish on the screen. But Wiese has the class focused on the obscure attachment at the flank as opposed to the waving rod extending from the fish's forehead. “And here we have the parasitic male.”

The male needs a highly developed sense of smell to find his mate in the pitch-black of the pelagic underworld. He will depend on her his entire life, and his story only gets more interesting.

“The Secret Life of the Lobster” is Trevor Carson’s novel of underwater erotica, describing how lobsters urinate on one another before an evening of lascivious missionary love. Luc Jacquet’s “March of the Penguins” is a compelling love story about Emperor penguins who starve themselves to prevent their single embryo from freezing on the ice of the pole. But the untold story of the anglerfish is just as compelling.

As disclosed by Wiese, the anglerfish lives a tale of honesty and commitment, capturing the sexual dimorphism of modern day man closer than any book or movie built on the life circle of an aquatic species. After smelling out a mate, the male commits to eternity with a locking bite to her flank and slowly begins the process of degeneration. He will lose his eyesight and internal organs, his life coalescing with hers, his blood circulating with hers as they become one. His skin will fuse with this mate’s. She will provide him with all the food and nutrients necessary to sustain life. And in return for his existence, he will simply grow testicles in order to provide sperm and reproduce.