Freaky fish: Russian fisherman shares his collection of creatures dragged from the depths

Russian fisherman Roman Fedortsov has gained more than half a million followers on Instagram sharing photos of weird and wonderful sea creatures hauled from the depths, including this ancient-looking frilled shark. (Instagram/rfedortsov_official_account)

A Russian fisherman has gained more than half a million followers on Instagram by sharing photos of weird and wonderful sea creatures hauled from the depths.

Roman Fedortsov from Murmansk, a port city in northern Russia, has been posting his deep-sea discoveries to Twitter and Instagram since 2016.

His hauls feature monstrous-looking fish species, which adapted to life deep underwater with little or no light, and often resemble aliens from a Hollywood movie.

The fish take on an even more grotesque appearance when they are brought to the surface as their swim bladders, which control buoyancy, blow up causing eye-bulging and contortions.

“I decided to create my Instagram and Twitter accounts because many people have no idea how the fish could look like,” Fedortsov told CTVNews.ca via email.

The 40-year-old sometimes finds the strange-looking animals among his catch while commercial fishing in the Norwegian and Barents Sea, the Arctic Ocean and Greenland Sea.

Recent finds include delicate brittle stars, a relation of the star fish, a sinister-looking jet black-finned fish and others, including a shark, bearing their fearsome teeth.

The former student of the Marine University in Murmansk told CTVNews.ca he was “surprised” by the success of his social media accounts.

“I find these deep sea creatures very rarely. But a simple fish can also be photographed beautifully and unusually,” he said.

“I was really impressed by the appearance of some deep fish and I wanted to share my experience with other people.”

According to his Twitter handle, Fedortsov uses an iPhone 8+ to capture the images.

But there is clearly an audience for his work, with more than half a million followers on Instagram on the back of more than 3,000 posts.

He has more than 145,000 followers on Twitter.

Having previously caught mostly cod and haddock, Fedortsov now trawls for shrimps.