Queer Fish, But Definitely

There are more than 40,000 kinds of fish in the world. Their habitats range from the profoundest depths of the seas to cold lakes and brooks on mountain timberlines. They show a bewildering diversity in their ways of life.

The smallest of fish is a Philippine goby, less than a third of an inch long and weighing a fraction of an ounce. The largest is the whale shark, found in all warm seas. Some individuals exceed twenty tons.

Some fish burrow in the mud, some swim, some walk, some fly, some breathe air. Some are timid, some bold and bloodthirsty. Some are placid, some easily irritated.

Some are highly venomous. One, found in Australian waters, weighs nearly half a ton and has poison barbs a foot long. Some of the deadliest are among the most beautifully colored.

Freshwater fish can sometimes be cut out of cakes of ice in which they have been frozen for months at a time, and completely revive. Actually the fish themselves are not frozen. The freezing point of their blood is slightly lower than that of water. They were merely “hibernating”. This may happen frequently in nature.

Some fish seem well on their way to becoming land animals. They can breathe in air better than in water.

Surgeon fish are so-called because of a sharp spine on the tail which can produce a cut like that made by a surgeon’s scalpel.

Parrot fish have beaks like parrots with which they scour algae from the coral reefs for food.

Goat fish have two growths under the mouth which look like the chin whiskers of goats.

Porcupine fish, whose skins are covered with sharp spines and which can fill their sac-like bodies with water or inflate them with air until they form a ball about twice their normal size. When the bodies are puffed up the sharp spines are erected to protect the creatures against their enemies. The inflation is a defense measure which takes place almost automatically when the fish is alarmed.

Trigger fish are creatures with rigid spines which “lock” automatically when the animals are in danger so that they cannot be bent. They can be unlocked, presumably by a nerve reflex, only by the fish themselves or by some scientist who knows the precise spinal process to touch.

Squirrel fish are brilliantly colored little creatures with large deep-brown eyes which look like the eyes of a squirrel.

Scorpion fish have bodies covered with venomous spines whose poison is reputed to be sometimes fatal even to man.

Flying half-beaks are fish with long, slender upper jaws and practically no lower jaws. They make long glides over the water and may represent an ancestral form of flying fish.

The elephant fish is so-called because of its very rough thick skin and apparent extreme clumsiness of its body, both characteristics of the elephant. Elephantichthys might be likened to a thick leather bag about eight inches long stuffed loosely with vital organs. It has a cartilaginous rather than a bony skeleton. It flattens out when laid on a flat surface out of water. It is almost mollusk likee in the softness of its body. Its skin is approximately a quarter of an inch long.

The aptocyclus, or “rattling fish”, is a close relative of Elephantichthys in Arctic waters. It also seems to be a haphazard conglomeration of vital organs stuffed in a bag. The fish actually rattle inside when the skin is not filled with water. All fish of this family live at the bottom of fairly shallow water, firmly attached to flat stones by disk-like suckers. Although they have the power of locomotion they seldom use it, remaining stationary on the bottom and waiting for their food to come to them.

Most fish have a tail fin, usually forked, with which they propel themselves, but the rat fish has a body tapering down to a long, pointed extension that looks like a rodent’s tail. They are dwellers in deep waters all over the world. Some are quite fantastic. One, Macruroides inflaticeps, consists essentially of a head and a tail without any apparent intermediate body; it looks like an enormous tadpole.

Pearl fish are minute animals that are sometimes found inside oysters and clams entirely encrusted with mother-of-pearl. They actually become large pearls shaped like fish. These small, nearly transparent creatures sometimes back into the open shell of an oyster or clam that snaps once the fish are inside. When this happens the creature perishes but sets up an irritation that leads to the pearl secretion over it.