Comments on: Flying Fish

Flying Fish

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:50:44 -0800

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.

By: horsemuth

horsemuth — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:53:39 -0800

Don't worry, we'll find a way to wipe them out.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:58:18 -0800

Faster Fishes! Fly! Fly!

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:58:32 -0800

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere, fishyfishyfishy! /Ernie

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:00:20 -0800

I love the title of the last link: "Evidence of Evolution/Mutation?" Errr. Yeah. So are you.

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:03:51 -0800

"Don't worry, we'll find a way to wipe them out." Crocodile Dundee can take care of that.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:15:52 -0800

"Those seagulls are deviant bastards, screwing around with fish like that." Comment on YouTube.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:23:38 -0800

To be fair, seagulls are assholes.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:27:40 -0800

Fly all you want, but soon the orangutans will adapt!

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:32:40 -0800

That picture scares me.

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:33:26 -0800

then you have the walking catfish

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:57:21 -0800

Evolution oddities are fascinating.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:01:17 -0800

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.

By: namespan

namespan — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:19:23 -0800

The longer the fish can stay out of the water the less likely a predator in the water will catch it.

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:26:38 -0800

You're right namespan. I overlooked the "deviant bastard seagulls" before submitting.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:34:22 -0800

I'm pretty sure the first YouTube link is not a flying fish, technically, just a fish that jumps real good.

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:54:57 -0800

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.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:18:48 -0800

Evolution oddities are fascinating. Quoth the run-of-the-mill mall-shopping dog-walking planet-destroying primate.

By: gueneverey

gueneverey — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:20:14 -0800

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.

By: bluejayk

bluejayk — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:38:25 -0800

Maybe there's something in the water that's scaring them.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:04:28 -0800

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.

By: dame

dame — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:23:08 -0800

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.

By: surrendering monkey

surrendering monkey — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:35:29 -0800

Here's a better version of the 45 seconds world record breaker flying fish (National Geographic).

By: Belle O'Cosity

Belle O'Cosity — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:38:23 -0800

They are trying to kill us. http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/freak-flying-fish-kills-woman-on-boat-1324228.html

By: X4ster

X4ster — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:05:39 -0800

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.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:41:26 -0800

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.

By: aliceinreality

aliceinreality — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:20:38 -0800

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.

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:55:21 -0800

nickyskye: Thanks for doing the detective work. We live in an interesting world.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:04:57 -0800

That first video is pretty old, no? Also, I already posted the second video. So there