Oxylebius
Well-Known Member
Leaping Fish Spends Entire Life on Land
The next time you feel like a fish out of water, think of the Pacific leaping blenny.
(From Scientific American / by Jennifer Frazer) – It spends its entire life out of water, expertly flopping around the rocks near the sea on the Pacific island of Guam, grazing on slime, showing off for the babes (and the guys), and it’s plainly lovin’ it. According to the authors of a new study on this fish that boldly went where few have gone before, the Pacific leaping blenny (Alticus arnoldorum) measures just a few inches long. What it lacks in size it makes up for in chutzpah, having made “one of the most extreme ecological transitions possible”, i.e., bailing on that whole ocean thing. It’s so 3 billion years ago.
Just watch (video in link above).
Reference
Morgans C.L. & Ord T.J. (2013). Natural selection in novel environments: predation selects for background matching in the body colour of a land fish, Animal Behaviour, 86 (6) 1241-1249. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.09.027
The next time you feel like a fish out of water, think of the Pacific leaping blenny.
(From Scientific American / by Jennifer Frazer) – It spends its entire life out of water, expertly flopping around the rocks near the sea on the Pacific island of Guam, grazing on slime, showing off for the babes (and the guys), and it’s plainly lovin’ it. According to the authors of a new study on this fish that boldly went where few have gone before, the Pacific leaping blenny (Alticus arnoldorum) measures just a few inches long. What it lacks in size it makes up for in chutzpah, having made “one of the most extreme ecological transitions possible”, i.e., bailing on that whole ocean thing. It’s so 3 billion years ago.
Just watch (video in link above).
Reference
Morgans C.L. & Ord T.J. (2013). Natural selection in novel environments: predation selects for background matching in the body colour of a land fish, Animal Behaviour, 86 (6) 1241-1249. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.09.027