Tilt your head down and hover. That is the lookdown dory's default posture. It is how the fish got its name. It hangs in mid-water with its head angled toward the seafloor. It scans the dark waters below for prey. The deep, compressed body makes it appear almost invisible when facing a predator head-on. Enormous eyes do the rest of the work. They gather what little light exists between 100 and 400 metres down. The lookdown dory is a close relative of the better-known John dory. It shares the same distinctive shape and the large, dark spot on its side. But where John dory patrols shallower waters, the lookdown dory stays deeper. It inhabits continental slopes and seamounts near submarine canyons and underwater ridges. It hovers slowly. It feeds near the seafloor at night on small fish, squid and crustaceans. It generally lives a quiet, unremarkable life far from human attention. Nobody fishes for lookdown dory on purpose. It arrives as bycatch in trawl and longline fisheries targeting hoki and oreo. The deep-sea bottom trawling that catches it also damages the rocky habitats where it lives. Slow reproduction and a long lifespan mean the species cannot take much pressure. But without species-specific stock assessments it is impossible to know how much is too much. New Zealand's quota management system caps the bycatch. That cap is based on limited data. Fishery observers record lookdown dory when they see them. But the fish are often misidentified or grouped into broader categories. Better species-specific data collection would help. It costs money and research vessels. Deep-sea research is never cheap. For now, the lookdown dory continues its tilted hovering. It scans the seafloor. It is largely invisible to science and invisible to predators. A flat ghost in the dim water. It has survived in these deep places for millions of years. With luck and careful management, it will survive our brief, noisy century of bottom trawling as well. It carries on.