#bristlemouth

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Justice for the bristlemouths

You're so right. Let's give them some justice!

Fish fact #514

Bristlemouths (family Gonostomatidae)!

They're a family of protandrous hermaphrodites, which means they all start out as male and then may become female! Females tend to be larger, though even then it's not really saying much; bristlemouths are only 7.5 cm (3 inches) on average.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Daily fish fact #449

Bristlemouths!

They get their name from their sharp and pointy bristle-like teeth! Though they live in the deep sea, they have an organ that allows them to sense ambient light, which allows them to have a circadian rhythm and exhibit seasonal behaviour!

[eriklolsen]

All the Fish We Did Not See - The Discovery of the Ocean's False Bottom off California

A paper nautilus or Argonaut, a group of pelagic octopuses that dwell in the ocean’s twilight zone. (Erik Olsen) Support California Curated with a small donation. In the summer of 1942, aboard the USS Jasper, a team of scientists embarked on a mission off the coast of San Diego, California, a hub for U.S. Navy operations and other military activities vital for the Pacific Theater of World War…

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[vintagewildlife]

Bristlemouths By: Paul A. Zahl From: Abyss: The Deep Sea and the Creatures that Live in It 1971

[sillyfishguy]

Got any cool facts about common fish?

YES I DO!!!

the most common fish in the ocean is the bristle mouth — its really small about the same size as a minnow. theyre named for their bristle shaped teeth. they are also protoandrous which means they begin male and then become female throughout their life cycle!!

they are also bioluminescent and use it to communicate sort of like “[dancing] or wearing bright colors at the nightclub” - ZME Science

they look pretty cool for a really common fish!!

[vintagewildlife]

Bonapartia fish By: Peter M. David From: Deep Oceans 1971

[reagancharlescook]

What is the most numerous vertebrate on earth?

Noah Strycker, the author of “The Thing With Feathers,” a book about birds, recently told an interviewer that the domestic chicken “has more numbers” than any other vertebrate.

He put the planetary figure at 24 billion - or 3.5 chickens for every person.

While that’s a big number it’s nowhere close to the record. 

In terms of total population the winner is a bristlemouth  — a fish that lives in the middle depths of the world’s oceans. 

Biologists put the global figure for bristlemouths at hundreds of trillions — perhaps quadrillions, or thousands of trillions.

“They’re everywhere,” Bruce H. Robison, a senior marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, said of the bony little fish. “Everybody agrees. It’s the most abundant on the planet.”

It makes sense that the winner is a fish. Habitats on land — rain forests, steppes, woodlands, deserts, alpine meadows, all well explored over the centuries — make up less than 1 percent of the planet’s biosphere. The band of life is narrow. Fertile soil goes down only a few feet, and even the tallest trees stretch up only a few hundred feet. 

Water, however, is a different story. It covers more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface and goes down miles. Scientists put the ocean’s share of the biosphere at more than 99 percent. 

From William H. Broad’s ‘An Ocean Mystery in the Trillions’

[ecosci]

An Ocean Mystery in the Trillions

Much is still not known about the bristlemouth, the planet’s most plentiful vertebrate. What’s more, the ocean, making up 99 percent of the biosphere, may hold untold undiscovered species.