The Common Anglerfish has a large mouth and three long worm-like organs attached to its head. It can be found all around the coasts of England where it spends most of its time at the bottom of the sea in depths of two to five hundred metres. This fish is also called the Monkfish by fishmongers.

The Common Anglerfish can grow up to two metres in length and up to forty kilogrammes in weight. It is a flat-looking fish that resembles the shape of a large banjo. It has a large fan-like fin on either side of its body and a long tapering tail. The Anglerfish wriggles its worm-like organs on its head in all directions to make them look like worms so it can catch prey. This fish very rarely swims. It lies and hides under the sand on the seabed and waits patiently for prey to pass by.

The spawn of the Anglerfish is quite amazing because it looks like a transparent jelly-like sheet which is approximately sixty to ninety centimetres wide and around eight metres long. The eggs are enclosed individually in this sheet in a single layer and the gelatine sheet floats freely in the sea.