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The fish is the barreleye, Macropinna microstoma. It does not have X-ray vision: its real eyes sit inside a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of its head. The green, tube-shaped eyes can point upward to watch for prey and rotate forward when the fish feeds.
How can the barreleye see through its own head?
The barreleye’s forehead is enclosed by a clear dome. Its eyes are inside that dome, rather than exposed on the outside of the head. Light passes through the transparent shield to reach the eyes, producing the extraordinary “sees through its own head” effect seen in deep-sea video.
The shield is a real physical structure, not an optical illusion. It is filled with fluid and is delicate; researchers believe it was often damaged or destroyed when barreleyes were hauled up in fishing nets. That damage helps explain why older specimens did not reveal the animal’s intact appearance.
What looks like an eye is actually a nostril
Two small spots near the mouth are often mistaken for eyes. They are olfactory organs called nares, which detect chemical cues in the water. The actual eyes are the two green cylinders visible inside the transparent head shield.
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| Feature | What is established |
|---|---|
| Species | Macropinna microstoma, the barreleye |
| Maximum size | About 15 cm (6 inches), according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s species profile |
| Typical depth | 600–800 m (2,000–2,600 feet), according to MBARI |
| Range | The North Pacific, from the Bering Sea to Japan and Baja California |
| Diet | Zooplankton, including crustaceans and siphonophores |
Its eyes can rotate inside the shield
Barreleye eyes are tubular and unusually mobile. When the fish is looking for prey above it, the tubes point upward. As the fish changes position to feed, the eyes rotate forward so it can see what it is eating.
That movement was documented in MBARI’s research. A 2009 press release described the finding this way: “A new paper by Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler shows that these unusual eyes can rotate within a transparent shield that covers the fish’s head.” The same release explained that this lets the fish “peer up at potential prey or focus forward to see what it is eating.”
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What the rare footage actually shows
The widely reported video came from an MBARI remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in Monterey Submarine Canyon. The barreleye was seen at about 650 meters (2,132 feet), within the species’ known deep-water range.
In a December 9, 2021 account, MBARI said its ROV program had recorded nine barreleye encounters after more than 5,600 dives and more than 27,600 hours of video. Those figures describe the institute’s observations up to that dated report. They are not a population estimate, and they do not represent the fish’s current global encounter total.
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Thomas Knowles, a senior aquarist at Monterey Bay Aquarium, recalled seeing the animal in the contemporary coverage: “The barreleye first appeared very small out in the blue distance, but I immediately knew what I was looking at. It couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.”
What scientists know—and what remains a hypothesis
Observed anatomy and movement
- The eyes are tubular, green and located beneath the transparent head shield.
- The eyes rotate from an upward viewing position to a forward feeding position.
- The shield is fragile and can be lost when specimens are brought to the surface in nets.
Proposed feeding strategy
MBARI has suggested that barreleyes may pick prey from the tentacles of siphonophores, colonial animals related to jellyfish. In that explanation, the clear shield could help protect the fish’s eyes from stinging cells. This is a hypothesis, not a behavior directly confirmed in the cited observations.
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How the barreleye’s secret was uncovered
MBARI researchers combined ROV video from waters off Central California with observations of a net-caught fish that survived for several hours in a shipboard aquarium. As the fish changed its body orientation, its tubular eyes rotated inside the shield. The work, reported by Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler in 2009, connected the living animal’s odd appearance with the eye movement visible in the footage.
The species is still poorly understood. A handful of ROV sightings cannot establish how many barreleyes exist, how often they encounter prey, or whether the recorded behavior is typical. Its deep habitat also makes sustained observation difficult.
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Where barreleyes live
Macropinna microstoma inhabits the dark North Pacific at roughly 600–800 meters. Its recorded range extends from the Bering Sea across to Japan and southward to Baja California. At those depths, the transparent shield and upward-facing eyes provide a specialized way to scan the water column while the fish remains nearly motionless.
Can you keep a barreleye as a pet?
No practical aquarium trade or home-care setup is established for this species. The animal is a deep-sea fish with a delicate shield and incomplete natural-history information. In the 2021 coverage, the aquarium’s aquarist said the institution was not adequately prepared to care for the poorly understood fish. The footage is best treated as a rare scientific observation, not a pet-keeping opportunity.
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