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Category: fish • new species
Posted on: March 2, 2009 5:22 PM, by Benny Bleiman
Last April we brought you images of a newly discovered frogfish with some unusual characteristics. Here are two videos of the Histiophryne psychedelica in action. After almost a year it has been confirmed, by the way, that this fish is indeed a new species to science.
When the fish opens its mouth for the second time, hit play on the Darkside of the Moon.
It bounces off of coral like a superball!
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Comments
I just can't get over those pectoral fins...
Seriously, they look like arms - with an elbow an everything. In that second video, when it landed in a crevice it stuck them out to grab the walls like someone climbing or bracing themselves.
Stunning!
It wasn't clear to me what it was doing with all that yawning. It was almost as if it was trying to suck in particulates - but it didn't really close it's mouth in quite the way I would expect if it was feeding (it looked like any water sucked in would be blown right back out).
That's a very weird fish!
Posted by: Irradiatus | March 2, 2009 6:28 PM
Thanks for these cool videos, and I do enjoy your blog, but the biopedant in me can't resist:
1.) the Latin binomial really does have to be in italics. Congratulations on the correct capitalization, however. 2.) no "the." Should read:...videos of Histiophryne psychedelica...
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | March 2, 2009 8:49 PM
Irradiatus beat me to it on both points, but I'm not sure I can support Sven dimilo's comment. ;)
Posted by: Myles | March 3, 2009 1:19 PM
life is stranger than fiction
Posted by: ym | March 4, 2009 6:55 PM
It wasn't clear to me what it was doing with all that yawning. It was almost as if it was trying to suck in particulates - but it didn't really close it's mouth in quite the way I would expect if it was feeding (it looked like any water sucked in would be blown right back out).
Posted by: FREE PHOTOS | March 5, 2009 5:56 PM
Frogfish are fantastically wierd.
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 12, 2009 4:34 AM