I do still have fish, by the way

I realized it's been AGES since I posted anything to do with my fishies. This was probably the last post and that's over four years ago! Whoops!

Well, first of all, the big tank is still around! Here's how it looks nowadays:

Many of the fish from the old post are still around, but one major change is that the tank is now also home to a trio of kissing gouramis, two natural green ones and one pink piggy. The green ones arrived not long after the previous post, so they're about 4 years old now, but the pink one is a bit younger with a mere 3 years.

This is Alpha Lips, also known as Känkkäränkkä or Känkkis among friends, showing off his impressive lips. As the name suggests, he (or she?) is the boss of the group and of the whole upper half of the tank. This guy is incredibly curious about his surroundings, as are the other two kissies. When I walk past the tank in the morning, Känkkis is always there in the nearest corner to say good morning. When we have guests over he can barely contain himself from all the exitement. If he were a dog he'd be the kind that jumps all over everyone. People! Yay!

You'll recognize Fishmeat the red-finned shark from the old post, he's about 5 years old now and still as handsome as ever. This is Känkkis' nemesis, and Känkkis is Fishmeat's. They have a kind of truce going on, where Känkkis rules the upper half, while the bottom is Fishmeat's kingdom. Here they're both at the border of their respective domains, hence the reasonably peaceful picture.

Here's Mr Kissington on the right, the other green kissing gourami. Along with Känkkis of course, who is too curious about what's going on to stay out of the photos.

He doesn't get to visit the bottom of the tank much though, Fishmeat makes sure of that! Hence this is the only Känkkis-free photo in this set. These guys, posing so nicely in a row for me, are three of my horseface loaches (I'm sure you can see where they get the name). The big one in the back was in the previous set of photos too, he's the the oldest at more than 7 years and is nearing 15 cm (6 inches) in length. The two little ones I got 4 years ago. Quite a size difference!

So here we have a few old faces and a few new ones. There's a bunch more fish in the tank I can introduce to you, but let's save some for another time!

Thar be sharks about!

A few days ago, shark pups were born in an unusual way at Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World in Auckland, New Zealand. A grumpy shark took a bite out of another, which ended up being a Caesarean delivery of eight baby sharks. Quite a surprise, as noone knew the attacked mommy shark was pregnant, and lucky since both mom and the sharklets survived the incident. The little ones were moved to a "nursery", the mother has been stitched up and as far as I know, both are doing well. Quite incredible.

This story inspired me to finally get around to making a tiny shark magnet, as I'd been planning to do for a while. This little guy was made with a combination of knitting and crochet and I'm very happy with how he turned out!

The Magnetic Knitted Shark
Considering the voracious appetite of the common knitted shark, it was no wonder that a magnetized form would appear, making it easier for these sharks to stay close to the fridge and its delicious contents.

FREEDOOOOOOM! Or, an interesting fishy tidbit.

While impatiently waiting for my new big tank to arrive (oh yes, it's on its way, all 160 cm of it), I have been amusing myself by looking up various fish species and planning what to put in said big tank. I came across this video while looking up info on hillstream loaches.

"Muahaha! Your silly glass boxes can't keep ME inside! FREEDOOOOOOOOM!"

As is often the case with seemingly baffling fish behaviour, it has its roots in the way the fish behave in the wild - in the case of this climbing action, it's how they travel past fast currents. Here's a neat article for those inclined to read more about this behaviour.

A Sea Bisquit's Life

My apologies to those of you who found yourselves craving some Tuesday Finds yesterday. I am Officially Worn Out, zombielike and not very talkative (type-ative?) right now. I took the last of the pre-holiday orders to the post office yesterday and it seems that the knowledge that I am now free to relax immediately set off some kind of total inertia. I'll try to be good next week though.

So, instead of much typing, I thought I'd share another video of underwater coolness for your viewing pleasure. It shows the life cycle of sea bisquits (Clypeaster subdepressus), a creature I admit I had never heard of before. I found it fascinating, I hope you do too.

Mmmm, bisquits... *wanders off in a highly zombielike manner in search of nutrition*

A Sea Biscuit's Life from Bruno Vellutini on Vimeo.

Blue-ringed Beauties and Wunderpuses

Greater blue-ringed octopus (photo by Jens Petersen)

Meekiyu commented on my previous post about underwater creatures, mentioning the blue-ringed octopus. It sounded fascinating so I did a bit of reading on this beautiful cephalopod. It turns out there are several species of blue-ringed octopuses, all of them teeny tiny (golfball-sized, according to Wikipedia) and extremely venomous.

An interesting tidbit is that the markings of the Greater blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) can be used to identify different individuals. This photo compares a few octopuses, the differences marked with white arrows.

While doing some more reading I found that the blue-ringed ones aren't alone; the "wunderpus" octopus (Wunderpus photogenicus, love that name) individuals can also be distinguished by their patterns. And now we come to the point of this longer-than-intended post. On the left here is a photo of a wunderpus, seen from above - this one seems to have quite a lovely smile! ;)


(Source for modified 2nd photo: Huffard CL, Caldwell RL, DeLoach N, Gentry DW, Humann P, B. MacDonald, B. Moore, R. Ross, T. Uno, S. Wong. 2008. Individually Unique Body Color Patterns in Octopus (Wunderpus photogenicus) Allow for Photoidentification. PLoS ONE 3(11): e3732.)

Beware the Vampire Squid from Hell

It has come to my attention that a creature called Vampyroteuthis infernalis exists, its name literally meaning "Vampire Squid from Hell". I felt this fact was worthy of a blog post.

Tuesday Finds: Jellyfish!

The Tuesday Finds are back! Well, at least for now, as I'll take my summer vacation in the near future and may not get around to using the computer much during that time. If the weather is nice, that is. *peers out at the falling icy rain*

Anyway! To make a long story short, this week's theme is jellyfish, because they look cool. So there. There's something truly fascinating about invertebrates.

I'll admit to being a bit lazy and not digging much to find the first item of the week, because I happened to see this Jellyfish Lamp by 1015 Designs on the front page of Etsy the other day. I immediately knew I had to show it off here. How could I not? It's awesome!
($975, 1015Designs.etsy.com)

Frost Indri offers purely decorative, ceramic jellies, such as this one, and even promises they won't sting. ;) Such a lovely surface and colours.
($28, frostindri.etsy.com)




If 2D art is more to your liking, how about a sweet watercolour painting called 'Jellyfishes in the sea' from Uluka Shop?
($24, uluka.etsy.com)