Chicago: another mass animal death

Along the Chicago lakefront, gizzard shad - a type of herring — are dying off in large numbers. Thousands, maybe more, are dead and frozen or floating in Lake Michigan. Geese and ducks are feeding on the dead and dying fish.

Gizzard shad, members of the herring family, are more sensitive to drops in oxygen levels than most fish. And thick ice came early to Chicago harbors in December.

PHOTO: Dale Bowman~For the Sun-Times
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Boo!

Photograph by Michael McEvoy, DEEP Indonesia/Barcroft/Fame Pictures

A close-up of a blue-eyed moray eel in Indonesia captured an honorable mention in the "Indonesia Residents" category of the fourth annual Deep Indonesia International Underwater Photo Competition, whose winning photos were released to the press earlier this month.

Known to grow as long as about 5 feet (1.5 meters), moray species generally lack pectoral fins, unlike most other eel species.

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10 Most Diabolical Fish On Earth

This piranha is one of the disgusting looking creatures included in Environmental Graffiti's list of the 10 Most Diabolical Fish On Earth.

Don't go in the water!

Photo from Flickr, by Laura Travels

This is fishy

Cute?

I don't speak Russian, but I think it's for a series of ads for AquaMagazine.

More here.

Here's a fishy story

Employees of a Pennsylvania pet store expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water received a man's dead body instead.

Mark Arabia owns the Pets Plus store in northeast Philadelphia, where the mix-up was discovered Tuesday. He said he learned the body was that of a 65-year-old San Diego-area man who died of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

The deceased man's wife said she was shocked initially, but found the former mailman's posthumous postal mix-up funny.

The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, 70 miles away.

The fish were left at the airport and probably died.

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Cute or not? Wobbegong Shark Pups

Photo found at ZooBorns

You learn something new every day

The photo above is a Jenny Haniver.

That's not the name of a person, it's the carcass of a ray or a skate which has been modified and subsequently dried, resulting in a grotesque preserved specimen. [wiki]

One suggestion for the origin of the term was "jeune d'Anvers" (French for Antwerp is Anvers), that is "young girl of Antwerp." British sailors "cockneyed" this description into the personal name "Jenny Hanvers."

For centuries, sailors sat on the Antwerp docks and carved these "mermaids" out of dried cuttlefish. They then preserved them further with a coat of varnish. They supported themselves by selling their artistic creations to working sailors as well as to tourists visiting the docks.

Jenny Hanivers have been created to look like devils, angels and dragons.

It is possible that Jenny Hanivers were the source of some tales of dragons during the Middle Ages, and they affirmed people's belief in dragons. Jenny Hanivers may also have started the legends of Mermaids.

(via Cynical-C)

At Susology, the story of an artist currently creating Jenny Hanivers.

Photo credit: Awkward Conversations post on "Rogue Taxidermy: The Jenny Haniver".

Funky fish found - the frogfish

A funky, psychedelic fish that bounces on the ocean floor like a rubber ball has been classified as a new species, a scientific journal reported. The frogfish — which has a swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes that extend from its aqua eyes to its tail — was initially discovered by scuba diving instructors working for a tour operator a year ago in shallow waters off Ambon island in eastern Indonesia.

Each time the fish strike the seabed, they push off with their fins and expel water from tiny gill openings to jet themselves forward. That, and an off-centered tail, causes them to bounce around in a bizarre, chaotic manner.

Photo credit: David Hall
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Cute or not? Atlantic wolffish