Freaky frogfish does the psychedelic hop - February 25, 2009
The ‘freaky flat-faced fish’ discovered last year near Indonesia has been confirmed as a new species. In a newly published paper Theodore Pietsch, Rachel Arnold, and David Hall admit the fish is “bizarre” and name it Histiophryne psychedelica.
Pietsch told LiveScience that where the beastie had come from was still a mystery, although it may have been living in deeper waters and recently moved into shallower depths for an unknown reason.
“It seems that some of these animals do a bit of moving up and down into deeper water,” he says. “We know they come up in shallow water to spawn and reproduce, but that cycle should’ve been noticed in past years and it really wasn’t.”
Unlike other frogfish, H. psychedelica hops rather than swims. From the paper:
Members of the genus Antennarius [frogfish] typically move short distances by ‘walking’, with the aid of pectoral and pelvic fins, or longer distances by swimming continuously from one location to the next, using a combination of jet propulsion and fin movements …, without touching bottom until they reach their final destination. In H. psychedelica, however, jet propulsion in a sustained, long-distance swimming effort was never observed. On the contrary, both individuals moved consistently in a series of short ‘hops’, the paired pelvic fins making frequent contact with, and appearing to push off, the bottom at each bounce.
As the press release puts it, psychedelica is an apt name, “given the cockamamie way the fish swim, some with so little control they look intoxicated and should be cited for DUI”. The video of the fish ‘swimming’ is well worth a watch.
Image: ©David Hall/seaphotos.com
Comments
Wooow cool..
I heard that this fish use part of its body as bait..
Is it true?
Which part?
Can u put a larger photo
I would like to save it.
Posted by: ahmad nur taufiqurrahman | February 26, 2009 10:10 AM
Strange!
I think the name is kinda funny, the guys who named it must have had a sense of humor. Histiophryne psychedelica.
Posted by: Annonymous | March 16, 2009 04:18 AM