Flying Fish
November 16, 2008 10:50 AM   Subscribe

The longer the fish can stay out of the water the less likely a predator will catch it. Flying fish are showing up all over the world.
posted by rageagainsttherobots (27 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Don't worry, we'll find a way to wipe them out.
posted by horsemuth at 10:53 AM on November 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


Faster Fishes! Fly! Fly!
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 AM on November 16, 2008


Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere, fishyfishyfishy!

/Ernie
posted by brundlefly at 10:58 AM on November 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


I love the title of the last link: "Evidence of Evolution/Mutation?"

Errr. Yeah. So are you.
posted by brundlefly at 11:00 AM on November 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


"Don't worry, we'll find a way to wipe them out." Crocodile Dundee can take care of that.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 11:03 AM on November 16, 2008


"Those seagulls are deviant bastards, screwing around with fish like that." Comment on YouTube.
posted by nickyskye at 11:15 AM on November 16, 2008


To be fair, seagulls are assholes.
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 AM on November 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


Fly all you want, but soon the orangutans will adapt!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:27 AM on November 16, 2008


That picture scares me.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 11:32 AM on November 16, 2008


then you have the walking catfish
posted by caddis at 11:33 AM on November 16, 2008


Evolution oddities are fascinating.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 11:57 AM on November 16, 2008


Actually, that first video is hilarious, even if I felt sorry for the poor, dumb flying fish, lured by those lights. The Brazilian narrator, after being barraged with thwacks and splats as the creatures hit his face, finally takes off his baseball cap and out flops a fish.

Looks like scientists are making robots like those flying fish.
posted by nickyskye at 12:01 PM on November 16, 2008


The longer the fish can stay out of the water the less likely a predator in the water will catch it.
posted by namespan at 12:19 PM on November 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


You're right namespan. I overlooked the "deviant bastard seagulls" before submitting.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 12:26 PM on November 16, 2008


I'm pretty sure the first YouTube link is not a flying fish, technically, just a fish that jumps real good.
posted by stbalbach at 12:34 PM on November 16, 2008


I lived in S. Florida near a canal and sometimes after a really hard night rain, I'd come out and there would be dozens of big fat fish flopping ALL OVER THE LAND. I don't know the science but that was all kinds of creepy. Did they just think the rain was water? And swim through it? I await answers. But I await them from Pennsylvania, where the only thing flopping in my yard is my dog.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:54 PM on November 16, 2008


Evolution oddities are fascinating.

Quoth the run-of-the-mill mall-shopping dog-walking planet-destroying primate.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:18 PM on November 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I'm no fish expert, but that first clip looked like Asian carp to me. They're an invasive species that has been known to injure boaters by jumping out of the water and colliding with them at high speeds.
posted by gueneverey at 1:20 PM on November 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


Maybe there's something in the water that's scaring them.
posted by bluejayk at 1:38 PM on November 16, 2008


About two years ago, my wife and I went to the Maldives. While on our way back to the capital of Male, flying fish, dozens at a time, began launching themselves out and away from the wake of our boat, and soaring hundreds of feet just over the waves. It probably took me close to a minute to realize that what I was seeing was real, and another before I remembered to bust out my video camera.
posted by JaredSeth at 2:04 PM on November 16, 2008


Aw. Along with the dolphins playing in our wake, flying fish are some of my faveorite memories of the boat to Catalina when I was a kid. Interesting that according to wikipedia they are mostly tropical and subtropical—the Catalina channel is freezing.
posted by dame at 2:23 PM on November 16, 2008


Here's a better version of the 45 seconds world record breaker flying fish (National Geographic).
posted by surrendering monkey at 3:35 PM on November 16, 2008


They are trying to kill us.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/freak-flying-fish-kills-woman-on-boat-1324228.html
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 3:38 PM on November 16, 2008


dame, I remember the flying fish in the Catalina channel too. It's been years since I've been out there and wonder whether they're still there. I think that the Southern CA coastal regions are considered subtropical.
posted by X4ster at 6:05 PM on November 16, 2008


Did a little detective work about the first video:
The video is a shortened version of a longer clip that originated on the Brazilian Pesca Rondônia web site. (”Pesca” is the Portuguese word for “fishing,” and Rondônia is a northern Brazilian state in the Amazonian region known for its great fishing rivers.) The footage was taken in the Guaporé region, on a portion of the Mequens River inside the Porto Rolins Park (a protected conservation area) where fishing is forbidden. The jumping fish shown in the video are matrinxã (Brycon cephalus), a Brazilian fresh water species.

I think those are more jumping fish, not flying.

An explanation about anothe type of jumping fish in this video:Wild Jumping Carp On Illinois River very similar to the Brazilian situation. Another one, yikes, 20 lb fish leaping out of the water. Amazing. It is called the flying carp.

A teenager's jaw was broken when a fish flew from the lake where he was riding in an inner tube and smacked him in the face.

Seth Russell, 15, was cruising Lake Chicot in Arkansas on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a Silver Asian carp leaped from the water and hit him in the face. Seth was knocked unconscious.

posted by nickyskye at 8:41 PM on November 16, 2008


nickyskye: Thanks for causing me to wikipedia "flying fish" so that I could learn those guys can fly at up to 60 km/h and sometimes hundreds of meters! That's crazy!

And here I thought they only jumped like these new-fangled jumping fish.
posted by aliceinreality at 9:20 PM on November 16, 2008


nickyskye: Thanks for doing the detective work. We live in an interesting world.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 5:55 PM on November 17, 2008


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