This page illustrates the frogfish we photographed on several dive trips to Anilao, Philippines. It is not a complete listing of the various flatfish families that occur there but shows only those for which we happened to get photos. Frogfish, sometimes called anglerfish, are predators upon other fish. They typically rest nearly motionless on the bottom and are equipped with a first dorsal spine modified into a slender "fishing pole" called an illicium usually tipped with a lure or bait called the esca. They have huge mouths and expandable stomachs that allow them to eat quite large fish. The frogfish are tough to identify from photos alone. Without being able to look at the anatomy of an in-hand specimen, you have to depend on external coloration and spotting, the size and shape of the illicium and esca, and maybe the morphology of the fins. In most species, the colors can vary widely, making color and pattern alone a risky form of identification. The names used on these pages are based on study of several books and web pages, but in the end are still largely guesswork. The thumbnails link to pages on each species.
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