#fish facts

[feelingautistic]

The blind shark, contrary to its name, is not blind. It instead gets its name because it retracts its eyeballs and shuts its eyelids when taken out of water by anglers, making it look like it has no eyes.

[futuristicangel09]

Random fish fact I know for some reason

Female Sword tail fish can change their apprentice from female to male when they can no longer have children, but they are still female. they are just infertile

[feelingautistic]

While great white sharks are most well known for leaping out of the water (known as breaching), shortfin mako sharks hold the record for the highest breach, breaching 9m (~30ft) from the surface.

[fishymari]

Silly fact of the week

did yall know that male anglerfish are these little fillers who just kinda attach themselves to girl anglerfishies one day like a parasite? Like then after they do they deadahh just proceed (jeje deltarune ref >:3) to decompose until they merge with the underbelly of the girl anglerfishy and then js become kinda like and extra organ to her for when she's ready to have eggs ദ്ദി◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ bro just kinda shows up one days and rots

[feelingautistic]

The smallest species of ray in the world is the finless sleeper ray, a species of electric ray. The smallest individual recorded was just 8.2cm (3.2in) long and weighed just 13g (0.46oz), potentially making it the smallest cartilagenous fish.

The finless sleeper ray gets its name from the fact, unlike other electric rays, it has no dorsal fin (the top fin).

[thebestfishinthesea]

Fish fact of the day everybody!

The opah (or moonfish) is the only known fully warm-blooded fish in the world!!! Cod you believe it?

[feelingautistic]

Why does this fish has such a big head?

So this is a flowerhorn cichlid and these aren't actually wild fish but the product of artifical selection by humans, meaning other cichlid species have been selectively bred to produce hybrids with these large heads and bright colourations (a process similar to dog breeding). Cichlids are a particularly significant group of fish in artificial selection because of their ability to rapidly develop new species over only a few generations.

In these cichlids, the large heads (formally known as nuchal humps) are believed to have a function in mate attraction, perhaps as a prominent display of bright colours.

However, it's more likely flowerhorn cichlids developed such large heads because we designed them that way for aesthetic purposes or perhaps for its unique appearance.

[feelingautistic]

While researching xylophagy in animals for my previous post, I discovered this genus of catfish Panaque, some of the only xylophagous vertebrates. Their jaws are adapted to consuming wood, having spoon-shaped teeth and highly angled jaws to chisel and scrape chunks off wood. Scientists have also discovered symbiotic gut bacteria that can aid in digesting wood.

However, it is debated whether these catfish are truly xylophagous as they don't seem to gain much energy from wood or hold wood particles in their gut for very long. Instead, some believe these catfish consume wood to feed on detritus (dead organic matter) found living within or on the surface.