fish
zooillogix | February 24, 2009The barreleye has been known to science since 1939 but scientists have never understood why the fish had a see-through head. Well now researchers at MBARI have solved the mystery: the barreleyes' see-through heads allow them to read each others' thoughts!
OK not true. Actually, their see through heads allow their long tubular eyes to actually stare up through their own noggins. We strongly suggest you go visit the sea monkeys at Deep Sea News to get the whole story. But if you don't care about "facts", and just want pretty pictures and scintillating see-through fish video, well, we got that…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2009tags: guest blog essay, fishkeeping, aquariums, Celebes Rainbowfish, Celebes Sailfish, Telmatherina ladigesi, pets
Adult male Celebes Rainbowfish (also known as a Celebes Sailfish), Telmatherina ladigesi.
Image: Orphaned. Please contact me so I can award proper attribution. [larger view].
As most of my readers know, I am an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist by training, and an aviculturist and birder by experience, so imagine my surprise when I was recently asked to write a guest blog essay about fishkeeping for an aquarium hobbyist blog site, The Reef Tank. How the heck did they…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2009tags: kingfisher, dive bombing bird, bird attack, nature, streaming video
This streaming video shows what it looks like to be a fish attacked by a kingfisher -- from the fish's point of view [0:23]
grrlscientist | February 13, 2009tags: The Blue Planet, marine life, evolution, streaming video
Thanks to one of my readers who wishes to remain anonymous, I have the great pleasure to own this fascinating BBC documentary, The Blue Planet [Amazon: $38.99], about those amazing creatures that live thousands of feet beneath the waves. I think you would love this series as much as I do. Narrated by the amazing David Attenborough [8:21]
grrlscientist | February 9, 2009tags: Satomi's pygmy seahorse, Indonesian wildlife, Stephen Wong, Takako Uno, image of the day
Satomi's pygmy seahorse, endemic to Indonesia, is one of the world's tiniest seahorses. Two adults would fit head-to-head across the face of a penny and their offspring are each about the size of a 12-point apostrophe.
Image: Stephen Wong and Takako Uno/National Geographic.
At under half an inch tall (13 millimeters), Satomi's pygmy seahorse -- named after dive guide Satomi Onishi -- is a strong contender for the world's smallest seahorse. With their tails stretched out straight, two Satomi's…
edyong | February 2, 2009In the movie Finding Nemo, the eponymous clownfish grows up in the security of his home reef and must find his way back after being fry-napped by an overenthusiastic diver. In reality, the larvae of clownfish spend their early lives adrift in the open ocean and only after weeks, or possibly months, do they return to the reefs where they were born.
Their journey is guided by several cues that help them navigate home. The sound of a reef may be one of these but it's clear that the most important sense for a returning fish is smell. Young fish have very well developed smell organs and respond…
edyong | February 1, 2009The Japanese pinecone fish searches for food with living headlights. This ÂÂhand-sized fish harbours colonies of light-producing bacteria in two organs on its lower jaw. The beams from these organs shine forward, and when night falls and the fish goes searching for food, its jaw-lamps light the way.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian bobtail squid also uses luminous bacteria, but theirs act as a cloaking device. They produce a dim glow that matches the strength of moonlight from above, hiding the squid's silhouette from hungry fish below. It's a mutual relationship; the squid gets…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2009tags: film, iMax, marine life, nature, movie trailer, streaming video
Thanks to the wonder of the blogosphere, I have been invited to a screening of the new film, Under the Sea 3D on 4 February 2009 -- below the fold is an interesting interview with the filmmakers along with a teaser for you to enjoy .. By the way, do I have any NYC readers who would like to come along? It is at 7pm on 4 February and I am allowed one guest .. (creeps need not apply) [2:53]
Tell me more!
edyong | January 20, 2009Whalefishes, bignoses and tapetails - these three groups of deep-sea fishes couldn't look more different. The whalefishes (Cetomimidae) have whale-shaped bodies with disproportionately large mouths, tiny eyes, no scales and furrowed lateral lines - narrow organs on a fish's flanks that allow it to sense water pressure.
The tapetails (Mirapinnidae) are very different - they also lack scales but they have no lateral lines. They have sharply angled mouths that give them a comical overbite and long tail streamers that extend to nine times the length of their bodies.
The bignoses (…
edyong | December 30, 2008In the twilit waters of the deep ocean, beneath about 1000m of water, swims the brownsnout spookfish (Dolichopteryx longipes). Like many other deep-sea fish, the spookfish is adapted to make the most of what little light penetrates to these depths, but it does so with some of the strangest eyes in the animal kingdom.
For a start, each eye is split into two connected parts, so the animal looks like it actually has four. One half points upwards and gives the spookfish a view of the ocean above. The other points downwards into the abyss below and it's this half that makes the spookfish unique.…
edyong | November 30, 2008Following last week's parrotfish, here's another underwater snap taken at the Whitsunday Islands. This is a bluespot stingray, and it was later joined by a second individual.
More pics and a video beneath the fold...
A video of the same ray...
And another species, the cowtail ray, spotted at Whitehaven Beach. It's facing the camera with the long tail trailing off towards the top of the shot. From a high outlook, we managed to see tens of these swimming about in the shallow water. I wanted to see if I could see one up close and this individual was just sitting there as I walked up to…
edyong | November 22, 2008Buying an underwater case for my digital camera was an excellent decision. This shot was taken at Pickford Reef in the Whitsunday Islands.
zooillogix | November 13, 2008We're gonna need a bigger canoe...
This is not a hoax. This monstrous Chinook Salmon was found dead in a shallow stream by the California Department of Fish and Game.
Biologist Doug Killam discovered this angler's dream during a survey of salmon that had recently spawned in Battle Creek, California. "I have counted tens of thousands of salmon during my career, and this is the biggest I have ever seen." It better freakin' be. The previous record holder was an 88lb-er although this beasty's weight was not provided in DPFG's press release.
Because Pacific Chinook salmon die after spawning,…
grrlscientist | November 12, 2008tags: seafood, fisheries, aquaculture, fish farming, tuna, swordfish, salmon, shrimp, sushi, book review
There's plenty of fish in the sea, as the old addage goes -- but are there, really? I experienced a rude awakening at the peak popularity of Orange Roughy, which I loved. I learned that Orange Roughy, Hoplostethus atlanticus, an extremely long-lived benthic species in the Western Pacific Ocean that doesn't even reach sexual maturity until 40 years of age, was being eaten out of existence by people like me. After I learned that, I never touched Orange Roughy again. But after I discovered…
grrlscientist | November 11, 2008tags: Photographer and Goliath Grouper, Nature's Best Photography, underwater photography, Florida, image of the day
Photographer and Goliath Grouper, Epinephelus itajara.
Image: Michael Patrick ONeill/MSNBC Nature's Best Photography 2008 [larger view].
Photographer comment:
The Goliath grouper is a large predator found in Atlantic, Caribbean, and eastern Pacific reefs. Reaching eight feet in length and weighing up to 800 pounds, it feeds on fish, stingrays, lobster, and even small sea turtles. The ocean off Jupiter, Florida, is a great place to photograph Goliath groupers. They tend to…
edyong | November 8, 2008On the surface, plummeting populations of sharks do not seem like much cause for concern for humans or, for that matter, other sea life. But this simple viewpoint relies on splitting animals into two groups - predators and prey. In practice, this distinction is far too crude. Too put it bluntly, there are predators and there are predators. Those at the top kill those in the middle, and stop them in turn, from killing those at the bottom. As the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The rise in shark fishing is mainly driven by a growing market for their fins. Shark fins soup…
grrlscientist | October 28, 2008tags: Galapagos, marine life, sharks, sea turtle, streaming video
This stunning video documents the undersea life of the Galapagos Islands -- and just when you think it can't get any better, the whale shark appears .. Music by Hans Zimmer [7:10]
Galapagos from Darek Sepiolo.
grrlscientist | October 9, 2008tags: Seattle Washington, Ballard Farmer's Market, fresh produce, fresh fish, wine, flowers
Dinner at Shannon's,
using fish, produce and wine from the Ballard farmer's market.
Image: GrrlScientist 28 September 2008 [larger view].
"Do you photograph every meal you eat?" Shannon sounded amused as I pointed my camera at the mushrooms in the frying pan.
"Well .. not exactly," I replied, thinking of all the meals that I had photographed, realizing that nearly all of them were meals I had eaten while traveling.
"After photographing parts of the Farmer's Market, it just seems to be the right…
zooillogix | October 9, 2008A joint UK-Japanese team has discovered the new record holder for the world's deepest living fish. At 7.7km deep in the Japan Trench, the researchers managed to take some great video of Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis doing its thing. The clowns at Deep Sea News have already covered this and we suggest you check out their site for more info, but the video below shows these deepwater fish gathering for Sunday supper.
Thanks to Tessa K and others for demanding that we ripoff DSN. Our pleasure!
bleimanb | September 16, 2008While Andrew wows you with such exciting facts as What Kind of Hay to Feed an Oryx from the AZA, I thought I'd cover some actual bizarre zoological news this week. A group of ichthyologists have recently made a startling discovery, one that was literally glowing right before their eyes.
This fish subsists on a diet of the pious and the weak.
Conventional marine biological wisdom (which some say is an oxymoron, oh ZINGA DING DING, Kevin Z!!!) has always assumed that fish at certain depths have no capacity to see red wavelengths. The sun's red rays do not penetrate past a certain point…