Weather there be Fish o' the Day...
(Been trying to get this posted for two days, but kept getting distracted - I'll backdate it later)
The marine layer, that morning ocean-related cloudiness that we often call June Gloom, is back with a vengeance. It's a misnomer because it tends to occur year round, just most often and nearly every day then. Yesterday I had to turn on the lights in the kitchen at 8 am; today it cleared up a little earlier. The patch of sky I can see over my cubicle wall is hazily blue, although I can still see white patches here and there.
I'm wondering if swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs in sycamore trees. I thought I'd read that their caterpillars preferred plants like anise, fennel and dill, but over this summer, I've noticed what seems like a lot of swallowtails hanging around the sycamores that surround our office. They like to chase each other around - it's kind of amusing to see two butterflies engaged in a dogfight. You don't usually think of a butterfly as being aggressive, but they are territorial.
I'm taking a break from table after table of sardine ages, lengths and year classes by month that has to be done for NOAA Fisheries to be able to tell the fleet how much they can actually catch next year. DP found a couple of neat fish in her sampling this morning, so we went down to the lab after lunch and photographed them.
California tonguefish - I was looking at this little guy and thinking, where are his other fins? Funny I'd never looked at one really closely before; we see them all the time. Sure enough, according to the book, CA tonguefish have no pectoral fins, and only one pelvic fin. While it's not uncommon for some fish to not have pelvic fins, I can't think of any others besides moray eels that don't have pectoral fins.
Close-up:
Sarcastic fringehead - These fish like to live in holes, cracks, shells, empty beer bottles, etc. They're very aggressive and have been known to lunge and snap ferociously at scuba divers. Dr. Milton Love writes about them in "Probably More Than You Want To Know About Fishes of The Pacific Coast" (the funniest guide to fish I've read):
Fringeheads, particularly sarcastics, are occasioanlly taken by both sport and commercial fishermen, and when this happens, no one is completely comfortable. The fish tend to be cranky and the fishermen tend to be nervous. I have seen very rugged commercial fishermen, men who laugh in the face of danger, doing fairly amusing little dances while a 6 in. long fish clamps sharp teeth around their thumbs.
A little more detail - from Ecshmeyer, et al:
This one doesn't have quite the enormous jaw of a mature male, but does have the yellow coloring on the jaw, so I would guess it's a juvenile.
Click to see movies of what they do with those giagantic jaws....
The marine layer, that morning ocean-related cloudiness that we often call June Gloom, is back with a vengeance. It's a misnomer because it tends to occur year round, just most often and nearly every day then. Yesterday I had to turn on the lights in the kitchen at 8 am; today it cleared up a little earlier. The patch of sky I can see over my cubicle wall is hazily blue, although I can still see white patches here and there.
I'm wondering if swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs in sycamore trees. I thought I'd read that their caterpillars preferred plants like anise, fennel and dill, but over this summer, I've noticed what seems like a lot of swallowtails hanging around the sycamores that surround our office. They like to chase each other around - it's kind of amusing to see two butterflies engaged in a dogfight. You don't usually think of a butterfly as being aggressive, but they are territorial.
I'm taking a break from table after table of sardine ages, lengths and year classes by month that has to be done for NOAA Fisheries to be able to tell the fleet how much they can actually catch next year. DP found a couple of neat fish in her sampling this morning, so we went down to the lab after lunch and photographed them.
California tonguefish - I was looking at this little guy and thinking, where are his other fins? Funny I'd never looked at one really closely before; we see them all the time. Sure enough, according to the book, CA tonguefish have no pectoral fins, and only one pelvic fin. While it's not uncommon for some fish to not have pelvic fins, I can't think of any others besides moray eels that don't have pectoral fins.
Close-up:
Sarcastic fringehead - These fish like to live in holes, cracks, shells, empty beer bottles, etc. They're very aggressive and have been known to lunge and snap ferociously at scuba divers. Dr. Milton Love writes about them in "Probably More Than You Want To Know About Fishes of The Pacific Coast" (the funniest guide to fish I've read):
Fringeheads, particularly sarcastics, are occasioanlly taken by both sport and commercial fishermen, and when this happens, no one is completely comfortable. The fish tend to be cranky and the fishermen tend to be nervous. I have seen very rugged commercial fishermen, men who laugh in the face of danger, doing fairly amusing little dances while a 6 in. long fish clamps sharp teeth around their thumbs.
A little more detail - from Ecshmeyer, et al:
This one doesn't have quite the enormous jaw of a mature male, but does have the yellow coloring on the jaw, so I would guess it's a juvenile.
Click to see movies of what they do with those giagantic jaws....