Real Deep Sea Creatures That Inspired Archie Widemouth

In the darkest depths, beyond the stretch of sunlight's reach, a myriad of marine creatures have evolved in mysterious ways in order to survive. The ocean’s strangest beings are not inventions of fantasy writers, they are real, and they are far stranger than we imagine. In Archie’s world, I take inspiration directly from these marvels of the deep.

THE FRILLED SHARK, A LIVING FOSSIL

The frilled shark, a living fossil of the deep, looks more like a dragon than a shark.

The frilled shark is a deep-sea predator that looks more like a sea serpent than a modern shark, and serves as an ideal inspiration for a marine underwater fanatasy novel. With six gill slits (most sharks have only five), needle-like teeth, and a long eel-like body, it truly feels prehistoric. Even stranger, frilled sharks are thought to have one of the longest gestation periods of any vertebrate, up to 3.5 years!

This creature inspired the terrifying Sea Serpent that chases Archie and Otto in Chapter Two of Archie Widemouth and the Whispers of a King. Like its real-life counterpart, the serpent’s jaws are capable of engulfing it's prey whole:

“The serpent’s mouth opened wide with its gills frilled. Sophia remained oblivious. Its expansive jaws could have gulped Sophia and Otto together in one bite.”

The frilled shark’s ability to expand its jaws to swallow prey half its own size provided the perfect model for one of Archie’s most dangerous encounters.

BLACK DRAGONFISH, MASTERS OF DISGUISE

The ultra-black dragonfish, nearly invisible in the abyss, inspired Archie’s sinister Vantafish.

Even their name sounds like they were plucked from a fantasy novel. The black dragonfish (Idiacanthus antrostomus) is among the most fascinating of deep-sea hunters. With ultra-black skin that absorbs more than 99.5% of light, they are almost invisible in the ocean depths. Scientists (Davis et al., 2020) discovered that this effect is caused by densely packed melanosomes (tiny pigment-filled cells that trap light), which scatter and absorb light so efficiently that bioluminescent flashes simply vanish against their bodies.

This adaptation inspired the Vantafish in my novel, shadowy creatures whose very skin absorbs not just light, but takes every ounce of joy from its captors, leaving them with nothing but emptiness:

“A school of thousands of vantafish surrounded him, each one taking its turn to feast on his energy, until they had sucked every bit of light from his eyes. The gloom chained him to the seabed, where the tide never seemed to change and the currents never flowed.”

Where the black dragonfish uses its invisibility to hunt and hide, the vantafish use theirs to torment, becoming perfect guardians of the Pits of Sorrow.

COMB JELLIES, LIVING RAINBOWS OF THE DEEP

Comb jellies scatter light into shimmering rainbows, living lanterns of the dark sea.

Comb jellies, or ctenophores, are some of the ocean’s most mesmerising creatures. Unlike jellyfish, they do not sting. Instead, they use sticky cells called colloblasts (cells that work like glue) to capture prey. Their most dazzling feature is the rows of tiny hair-like cilia that beat in synchrony, scattering light into shimmering rainbows. In the deep sea, some comb jellies also produce bioluminescence, glowing with eerie blue-green light. Picture an underwater lantern drifting silently in the dark.

In Archie Widemouth and the Whispers of a King, comb jellies are used by the shallow water folk to help them see in the darkness:

"She paced left and right as she moved towards them, scouring the waters, and, as she did, the comb jelly followed above, illuminating the waters around her."

Their glowing presence not only lights the way but also symbolises guidance and hope amid the ocean’s darkest places.

Magnapinna, The Bigfin Squid

The magnapinna, as imagined in the book, with its elbowed arms trailing like puppet strings, is the ocean’s alien squid.

The magnapinna, or bigfin squid, is one of the strangest creatures ever filmed in the deep sea. With its extremely long, elbowed arms that can stretch up to 8 metres, it looks almost extraterrestrial. Magnapinna have only been observed a handful of times by submersibles and ROVs, making them one of the least understood large squid species. Their arms and tentacles bend sharply at the body before trailing straight down like puppet strings, and they may be the deepest-living squid known, found at depths of more than 6,000 metres.

In Archie Widemouth and the Whispers of a King, the magnapinna inspired one of Archie and the gang's most nerve-racking encounters:

“A second tentacle came swooping across and lunged for Otto. Otto let go, and in an instant Ed was flung upwards towards the monster’s core. He had managed to avoid its catch, but he now found himself directly beneath the center the Magnapinna’s body, surrounded by its other gangly legs.”

Like the real squid, the fictional Magnapinna is both alien and terrifying, its long limbs creating an inescapable barrier around Archie and his friends.

Electric Eels, The Witches Servants

Electric eels (as imagined in the book) the witch’s spectral servants, flash with ghostly blue jolts in Archie’s world.

Despite its name, the electric eel is not a true eel but a knifefish, and it is not marine. Native to the rivers of South America, it is famous for producing shocks of up to 600 volts using specialised organs called electrocytes (cells that act like stacked batteries). These fish emit weaker pulses to navigate and communicate in murky water, but can unleash powerful bursts when hunting or defending themselves.

In Archie Widemouth and the Whispers of a King, I reimagined them as the witch’s eels, creatures shaped like long, dark conger eels, but charged with the electricity of the electric eel. Although real electric eels do not live 3,000 metres below the ocean’s surface, their astonishing power provided the perfect touch of science blended with fantasy.

“Encircling him with a slow, sinister grace, were electric eels only visible by the flash of blue electricity that ran from their head to tail in a ghastly spectral jolt. The people seemed to look down upon him with tenderness and compassion.”

From Science to Story

These deep sea creatures show us how real life can often be stranger, and more terrifying, than fiction. By blending real-world marine biology with fantasy, I hope to spark curiosity about the ocean, even as Archie battles monsters that stretch the imagination.

For those fascinated by deep sea creatures, bioluminescent animals, and how real animals find their way into fantasy novels, Archie Widemouth offers a world where science and story collide.

Want to see how these creatures become heroes and villains? Start reading Archie Widemouth here.

Click here to learn more on why I write about the ocean

References:

Chetan-Welsh, H. (2025) How do electric eels work?, Natural History Museum. Available at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-do-electric-eels-work.html (Accessed: 25 August 2025).

Davis, A. L., Thomas, K. N., Goetz, F. E., Robison, B. H., Johnsen, S., & Osborn, K. J. (2020). Ultra-black camouflage in deep-sea fishes. Current Biology, 30(17), 3470-3476.

Waggoner, B. M. (1995) Introduction to ctenophora. Introduction to the Ctenophora. Available at: https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/cnidaria/ctenophora.html (Accessed: August 2025).

Perez, J. (2024) What we know about the bigfin squid, Ocean Conservancy. Available at: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2024/02/22/what-we-know-about-bigfin-squid/ (Accessed: August 2025).

Swainston, R. (2020). Fishes of Australia The Complete Illustrated Guide.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1998). Ctenophore. Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/animal/ctenophore (Accessed: August 2025).