Marine biologist Juan C. Levesque captured a stunning close-up of a tiny baby swordfish on his finger tip. “Gladiator of the sea”, the minuscule creature can be measured in millimetres, but when fully grown, reaches 3 meters in length!

“Born with a short snout and prickly scales, swordfish develop rapidly,” Levesque writes in his article on the species. “Researchers in the Mediterranean Sea estimated the average growth rate of post-larvae/juvenile swordfish at somewhere between one-eighth and one-quarter of an inch per day.”

The baby swordfish might look totally defenseless, but like Levesque writes, “these fish are fighters from day one.” Don’t let this baby fool you – he already feeds on other fish larvae!

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