Stomach contents of 36 specimens of lancetfish stranded on the beach of Suruga Bay were analyzed and compared with those derived from surveys in the North Atlantic and the southeastern Pacific Oceans.The food consisted of organisms of such various sizes, shapes and colors, and living in such a wide variety of habitats as to indicate no selectivity.The largest proportion of food to body weight reached 74 %.An example indicated that the enormous teeth serve to cut up large prey that would be impossible to swallow as a whole.The teeth seem also effective in cutting some of trunk muscles to diminish the movement of the prey.It has been reported that stomach contents of lancetfish in the North Atlantic and the southeastern Pacific are markedly similar, having in common 39% of the fish species or closely related species, and including 13-16 of young of lancetfish, but negligible amount of lanternfish.In our survey, however, stomachs contained no fish species in common with the reported food of Alepisaurus in the North Atlantic and southeastern Pacific, which included considerable numbers of lanternfishes, but no young of Alepisaurus.These facts support the idea that stomach contents of lancetfish strongly reflect the composition of animal communities to which they belong in the sea.Our data probably indicate that small lancetfish are not present in Suruga Bay, and the species may not spawn in this area.