AQUATICS

aquascaping and fish reference information and inspiration

[herpsandbirds]

Fire Eel (Mastacembelus erythrotaenia), family Mastacembelidae, order Synbranchiformes, found in freshwater habitats in SE Asia

This species is not a “true eel”, but is in a group called the spiny eels.

photograph by Stan Sung

[cupofmeat]

Jellyfish mosaic tile piece, Havana, Cuba. From "Great Houses of Cuba" [Monacelli Press]

[skippygoldfish]

1 minute of goobies looking for yummy wafer

[likesplatterpaint]

Mama I amb not groceries.

[requiem-on-water]

Kelp forest - Monterey Bay Aquarium

[mevil]

[venndaai]

have you guys heard about the greenland shark. some crazy shit happening there.

[venndaai]

they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.

their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you

[fluorescentbrains]

this post prompted me to refresh my memory on Greenland Shark Facts and this detail about how they feed goes so hard

just vacuuming up their unsuspecting prey. whole !

[muffinlance]

Good news good news good news! Recent research suggests the eye parasites do NOT blind them!

Eye-opening research: Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair mechanism

Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk sits in her office, eyes fixed on the computer monitor in front of her. "You see it move its eye," says the UC Ir

I <3 you a normal amount Greenland sharks

[rosieandthemoon]

Lupins & Foxgloves {via Milli Proust}

[betta-butch]

some recent fish pictures 🩵

[goldtilt]

Baby shark pendant @puchuco709

[passionate-sharks]

[joelpersels]

[thenativetank]

I was passing by the 55 gallon tank today when I came across this little dude! Barely more than eyeballs and fins.

Just a Lil guy! Despite having a large group of Bluespotted Sunfish in this tank for over 4 years and seeing them breed, this is the first survivor.

I'm pretty sure these two are the parents. They've own the left third of the tank.

Bonus! Everybody out at dinner time.

[endivinity]

it's pupy

[dailycephalopods]

Daily Cephalopod #224

[yiffmaster]

"sharks are older than trees" is technically true, but TIL that sharks were a marginal group until the mid-Jurassic (the middle of the Dino Age, ~200-150 mya), and all modern shark orders first appear around this time.

Before then, a different group of cartilaginous fish called hybodonts were the big apex predators. How were they different than sharks? Mostly because they had "boney" dorsal spines made out of dentine and enamel. Like teeth are. Like where would that tech have gone, if they'd survived and kept evolving for 200 million more years?

[yiffmaster]

TIL that sharks went thru a mysterious extinction event 19 million years ago, when 95% of populations and 70% of species disappeared. Sediment samples go from having 1 shark fossil for every 5 fish fossils, to 1 shark per 100 fish (does that mean that the ocean used to be like 16% shark??)

And there was no big climate change then, or extinctions of other groups! This research is pretty recent and no one has even an educated guess!

Two effects of this:

All of today's big ocean sharks (Great White, Tiger, Basking, etc.) all evolved from coastal sharks that survived this event. And,

Populations haven't recovered. Sharks as a group are still decimated, a shadow of their former selves for most of the last 200 million years.

[gestaltaggregation]

Quiet, fish are growing! Shhh! May 24th, 2020