Lanternfish

Lanternfish are small deepwater marine fish of the family Myctophidae — named for their bioluminescent photophores — widely distributed across the world’s oceans and among the most abundant vertebrates by biomass. Some species are used as food fish (notably in South Africa and the Arabian Sea), while most serve as feed for larger predators and as raw material for fishmeal and fish oil. Their huge, largely unexploited biomass interests fisheries as a potential protein source for human food and aquafeeds, though harvesting deepwater stocks raises sustainability questions (slow growth, ecosystem roles) and processing challenges (high wax-ester content in some species).