Episode 490: Ipnops and Other Deep-Sea Fish

Episode 490: Ipnops and Other Deep-Sea Fish

From Strange Animals Podcast by Katherine Shaw

June 22, 2026 · 9 min

About this episode

This episode discusses Ipnops and other deep-sea fish, exploring their characteristics and habitats.

Further reading: Faceless Fish and the deep-sea voyages that found it Long-Lost ‘Faceless’ Fish Shows Up Near Australia Ipnops: The faceless cusk [photo taken from the second article linked above]: A tripod fish: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. It’s a fish episode! These are also deep-sea fish, and you know how much I love deep-sea animals. Let’s talk first about some fish in the family Ipnopidae, including one deep-sea fish with the pleasing name of Ipnops. We know of three species of ipnops so far, but there may be more that scientists just haven’t found yet. Some scientists think there’s actually only one species, since all three species look almost identical but just live in different parts of the deep sea. Ipnops is sometimes called the grideye spiderfish. If you don’t know what it looks like, you may think the word spider in its name is the weird part. It’s not, and in fact I’m not sure where that comes from. It could be that the fish’s transparent fins look kind of like spiderwebs. Other fish in its family are called spiderfish too but are also sometimes called lizardfish. It feels like someone was in a goofy mood…

People in this episode

Host: Katherine Shaw

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Faceless Fish and the deep-sea voyages that found it, Long-Lost ‘Faceless’ Fish Shows Up Near Australia, Ipnops: The faceless cusk

Places: Australia

More episodes of Strange Animals Podcast

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Strange Animals Podcast podcast page.