"Those with the protective mucous slept like a baby. Those without were like human mosquito magnets, suffering from multiple bites." —Would you sleep inside a cocoon made of your own mucous if it would keep mosquitoes away? Jesus, this is gross, but… I think… I would??!! (Worst, of all, in the future, I might have to.)
Lest we ever think we understand anything, we don't. In this current era of environmental devastation, when the word "salmon" brings to mind tainted eggs and the disease-infested fish farms, rather than anything anybody would want to put in their mouth, the delicious, nutritious and very-much wild Sockeye variety of the species returned to Vancouver's Fraser River in astounding numbers this year.
We may not be stupid enough to have wiped ourselves out as a species (yet), but we're certainly capable of doing it to others. Take the Louisiana pancake batfish, a species so "new" that it was only recently discovered by Louisiana State University ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty, who noted the fish's freakish behavior and appearance.
There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion and without logic. It lives to kill. A mindless eating machine. It will attack and devour anything. It is as if god created the devil and gave him… carp. I mean, I don't know if this is more like Jaws or Piranha or Deep Blue Sea. But it is pretty damn scary. CBS news reports that giant Asian carp-much like Benson, who was from England, but less heartwarming and dearly departed, and more giant and voracious and terrifying and, apparently, unstoppable-are on the verge of invading Lake [...]
The Wall Street Journal picks up the story of Benson the carp and investigates five possible reasons for the giant fish's demise.
The long-haired crab, the Darth Vader jellyfish and the vampire squid are but three of the new species discovered in the "global marine census." You know what? It's all pretty cool. Enjoy.
In today's adorable instance of cruelty against animals, meet a deer in China who drinks beer. Also: I'm a little late to this one and deeply, deeply sorry, because know you people rely on me for this sort of thing and I'm mortified that I missed it when it first popped up, but you will probably want to see this video of a fish who looks like Shrek. He is nicknamed "Shrek" because of the similarity in appearance. If you are in the market for a video of a fish that bears an uncanny resemblance to Shrek you will almost certainly enjoy this.
Marine biologists have known for a while about the territorial instincts of the damselfish. (That's one in that video there, the two-tone yellow-and-black number, telling a bunch of other fish and a scuba diver to get the hell off its lawn.) The small, tropical reef fish is famous for claiming a patch of algae and chasing off any other creatures than swim or crawl nearby. But that's not all!
Researchers in Brazil discovered a new species of fish. The creature is over six feet long, is small of tooth, and is COMPLETELY DISGUSTING. Due to its gelatinous nature, scientists say that the fish is not edible, although I'm not 100 percent sure on that because it looks a whole lot like something I threw up yesterday. Full video here.
Previously: Less disgusting fish
Benson, a gigantic English carp, has passed away at the age of 25. There are suspicions that she was deliberately poisoned with raw tiger nuts by an irate fisherman who was unable to capture her. But mostly there is grief.
"Once the net was on the beach it was picking time. All sorts of bait jumped about. The majority of it was tiny green-tinted spearing. But the seine also netted grass shrimp, striped killies, a needle fish, one baby fluke and a tropical butterfly fish about the size of a quarter. Rarely do you see three people so fascinated by such a tiny specimen. Its golden green color glistened in the sunlight. 'It probably came up through the intercoastal waterway,' Figs suggested. The Manasquan River is the very northern end of the waterway that leads south to Florida. It could be that the little fish hitched a ride as [...]
OK, so admittedly this is totally yesterday but the rumor that January Jones might be tangling junk with Jeremy Piven is SO FUNNY. Because anyone who's disappointed and didn't already think she was exactly this flavor of asshole needs to raise their hands so I can tag them for being losers. In fact, don't raise your hand, I BET I CAN TELL WHO YOU ARE.
Whelp, there goes a nice moral rationalization for eating eating seafood. Turns out goldfish recognize and remember pain and dead salmon recognize human facial expressions. (WHAT.) You kinda always suspected, right? I mean, the way lobsters scream when you stab them.
Via Fark: British supermarket chain Sainsbury's will stop selling the pollack under that name, since it sounds too much like English slang for testicles. The fish will now be referred to as "colin," which is pronounced col-an. Yeah, you read that right.
