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Viperfish and creatures like it have evolved ever blacker—we're talking blacker than black—so they can hide in plain sight.

"The public normally thinks about anglerfish or viperfish," the black, monster-jawed fish with the dangling lanterns usually found a few thousand meters down, says Mackenzie Gerringer, a postdoctoral fellow at the Unversity of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories.

The technique of mimicking a non-threatening or tasty species to lure prey is known as aggressive mimicry, and it’s seen in other deep-sea creatures such as anglerfish, viperfish and dragonfish.