THE FUNNY LOOKING, RED-LIPPED BATFISH

The funny looking, red-lipped batfish. As you marvel at the wonders of evolution—how a creature can emerge with some odd, new trait that might either propel it forward or at least not hinder its survival—and how that creature can then pass on this peculiar advantage (or benign quirk) to its offspring, take a moment to consider the red-lipped batfish.

This is a real animal, not a fever dream. Its mouth resembles the kind of exaggerated lips you might have sculpted from Babybel cheese wax as a child, paired with fake red wax nails. It sports a beard of white whiskers and fins that bend backward like a yogi settling into upward dog. To top it off, it has a bizarre extra limb sprouting from its nostril. Technically, it’s a snout—long, hooked, and perched on top of its head. Batfish are not good swimmers; they use their highly adapted pectoral, pelvic and anal fins to “walk” on the ocean floor.

You might think, Why not the red-lipped batfish? Why shouldn’t it exist? The red-lipped batfish would disagree. Its eternal scowl seems to convey a single, resounding message: it regrets evolving altogether. Better to have remained primordial slime than to end up like this.

If you’re struggling to picture it, imagine cobbling one together from the random, chaotic piles of stuff perpetually cluttering your home. Naturally, this oddity thrives in the waters off the Galápagos Islands. It preys on smaller fish and is larger than you’d expect—red-lipped batfish can grow up to 40cm. Adorned with stripes and spots, it has another peculiar feature: as it matures, its dorsal fin transforms into a spine-like projection called an illicium. At the tip of this structure is an esca, which emits light to attract prey. This strange beacon allows the fish to thrive even 300 meters below the ocean’s surface.

As the great Hannah Horvath once put it:

“Is there anything in this world creepier than a fish?”

The red-lipped batfish looks like it’s daring you to ask if it’s wearing lipstick. (Spoiler: it is—badly applied, uneven, and way outside the lines, as if its fins doubled as makeup tools.)

Haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we all felt like an awkward, oddly proportioned, irritable, floor-dwelling misfit? Even Werner Herzog might sympathise. His words could easily describe the plight of this peculiar fish:

“We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and […] overwhelming lack of order. Even the stars up here in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe.”