fish

"Dory, that's a jellyfish!"

"Why is it that me locks can sting other people but they have no effect on me or you?"

"The guppy, Poecilia reticulata, is one of the world's most widely distributed tropical fish. It is found in every continent apart from Antarctica and its range continues to be extended, both through the pet trade and as a means of controlling malarial mosquitoes. Guppies occur in some unlikely locations, such as the Moscow sewage works (Zhuikov 1993) and the in Essex in England (Maitland and Campbell 1992; but see Wheeler et al. 2004), where they can survive because heated effluent maintains the water temperature at tropical levels. Guppies were even sent into space aboard the . This spectacular dispersal, much of it human assisted and not all of it beneficial to the native fish communities into which guppies are introduced ..., illustrates the adaptability of the species. However, it is the ability of guppies to thrive in different ecological communities and environmental conditions within their natural range of NE , and in in particular, that has proved particularly fruitful in testing key evolutionary theories."

"Guppies live about two years. Breeders have developed multitudes of fin colors and patterns. Many clubs breed what they believe are excellent specimens and then hold guppy shows to display them."

"Before a faculty meeting, talking again with the expert on guppy menopause. What do biologists make of the question, Does color exist? I ask. Duh, he says. A male guppy looking for a mate doesn’t worry about whether color exists, he says. A male guppy only cares about being orange, in order to attract one. But can it really be said that the guppy cares about being orange? I ask. No, he admits. The male guppy simply is orange. Why orange? I ask. He shrugs. In the face of some questions, he says, biologists can only vacate the field."

"There are over five hundred fish species that live on Caribbean reefs, but the ones I just can't get out of my head are parrotfish... in all their flamboyant, algae-eating, sand-pooping, sex-changing glory."

"Ye Nymphes of Mulla which with carefull heed, The siluer scaly trouts doe tend full well, And greedy pikes which use therein to feed, (Those trouts and pikes all others doo excell) And ye likewise which keepe the rushy lake, Where none doo fishes take."

"Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin. They dance on the surface among the flies."

"The ruthless pike, intent on war."

"Full of scorn was Hiawatha When he saw the fish rise upward, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, Coming nearer, nearer to him, And he shouted through the water, “Esa! esa! shame upon you! You are but the pike, Kenozha, You are not the fish I wanted, You are not the King of Fishes!”"

"From shadows of rich oaks outpeer The moss-green bastions of the weir, Where the quick dipper forages In elver-peopled crevices, And a small runlet trickling down the sluice Gossamer music tires not to unloose.Else round the broad pool’s hush Nothing stirs, Unless sometimes a straggling heifer crush Through the thronged spinney whence the pheasant whirs;Or martins in a flash Come with wild mirth to dip their magical wings, While in the shallow some doomed bulrush swings At whose hid root the diver vole’s teeth gnash.And nigh this toppling reed, still as the dead The great pike lies, the murderous patriarch Watching the waterpit sheer-shelving dark, Where through the plash his lithe bright vassals thread.The rose-finned roach and bluish bream And staring ruffe steal up the stream Hard by their glutted tyrant, now Still as a sunken bough.He on the sandbank lies, Sunning himself long hours With stony gorgon eyes: Westward the hot sun lowers.Sudden the gray pike changes, and quivering poises for slaughter; Intense terror wakens around him, the shoals scud awry, but there chances A club unsuspecting; the prowling fins quicken, in fury he lances; And the miller that opens the hatch stands amazed at the whirl in the water."

"Now as an angler melancholy standing Upon a green bank yielding room for landing, A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook, Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook: Here pulls his line, there throws it in again, Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain, He long stands viewing of the curlèd stream; At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away, He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway, Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill, Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish’s gill; Then all his line he freely yieldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim Th’ ensnarèd fish, here on the top doth scud, There underneath the banks, then in the mud, And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal, That each one takes his hide, or starting hole: By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath A willow lies."

"... While sharks kill an average of four humans a year, humans kill 100 million sharks each year. ... While recreational fishing is doing considerable harm to the shark population around the world, commercial fishing is decimating it. Sharks are harvested throughout the world for their meat, skin, fins, liver, and cartilage. ... Specifically sharks are killed as a by-product of the $40 billion tuna industry, which provides the United States with enough tuna to feed every American 2.6 pounds per year."

"You see, Sykes, it's a fish-eat-fish world, you either take, or you get taken out."

"The life span of sharks can be determined by keeping them in captivity, by tagging, or, more commonly, by counting growth rings in their vertebrae or spines and estimating the age. Only a few species of sharks have been kept in captivity for long periods of time. When sharks have been captured young and have lived in captivity for prolonged periods, a rough idea of their potential life span can be obtained. Although keeping sharks in captivity for many years is a difficult feat, some sharks have lived for decades in captivity, indicating that they have long life spans. Unfortunately, most aquaria do not keep accurate records of the life span of their captive sharks, and valuable data on the longevity of sharks is lost."

"I have heard from Dr. Allan of Forres, that he has frequently found a Didion, floating alive and distended, in the stomach of the shark; and that on several occasions he has known it eat its way, not only through the coats of the stomach, but through the sides of the monster, which has thus been killed. Who would ever have imagined that a little soft fish could have destroyed the great and savage shark?"

"we used to think of sharks as bad guys — like the only good shark was a dead shark. And “man-eaters” — they used to tell me to “watch out for the man-eaters”...But actually, sharks have to worry about humans eating sharks. We consume millions of sharks...we’re shark-eaters. If 50 people a year get bitten by sharks, that’s big news. But consider the number of shark deaths that we cause every year. Maybe as many as on the order of 80 million sharks are taken, largely for shark fins for the soup."

"When the young is completely formed, the yolk remains attached to the belly by a long chord, consisting of blood vessels, and the fish swims about in the surrounding jelly with this attached to it. If the bag is torn, and the fish is taken out and put into the water, it swims about, but if the vessels going to the yolk are wounded, the fish immediately dies."

"The fisheries for this tilapia sustained lots of fish and they had a good time and they earned more than average in Ghana. When I went there 27 years later, the fish had shrunk to half of their size. They were maturing at five centimeters. They had been pushed genetically. There were still fishes. They were still kind of happy. And the fish also were happy to be there. So nothing has changed, but everything has changed."

"He was here, as you well know, in '35. And you'd think he was chasing finches, but he wasn't. He was actually collecting fish. And he described one of them as very "common." This was the sailfin grouper. A big fishery was run on it until the '80s. Now the fish is on the IUCN Red List. Now this story, we have heard it lots of times on Galapagos and other places, so there is nothing particular about it. But the point is, we still come to Galapagos."

"The genes in these cavefishes can also tell us about deep geological time, maybe no more so than in this species here. This is a new species we described from Madagascar that we named Typhleotris mararybe. That means "big sickness" in Malagasy, for how sick we got trying to collect this species. Now, believe it or not, swimming around sinkholes full of dead things and cave full of bat poop isn't the smartest thing you could be doing with your life, but YOLO."

"I want our children to grow up enjoying the taste of British apples as well as Cornish sardines, Norfolk turkey, Melton Mowbray pork pies, Wensleydale cheese, Herefordshire pears and of course black pudding."

"Born sinner: The opposite of a winner, remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner?"

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street,I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky."

"The salmon swimming upstream to spawn may be wily in a hundred ways, but she cannot even contemplate the prospect of abandoning her reproductive project and deciding instead to live out her days studying coastal geography or trying to learn Portuguese."

"Far out beyond the surf they felt it. Beyond the reach of any canoe, half a sea away, something stirred inside them, an ancient clock of bone and blood that said, "It’s time." Silver-scaled body its own sort of compass needle spinning in the sea, the floating arrow turned toward home. From all directions they came, the sea a funnel of fish, narrowing their path as they gathered closer and closer, until their silver bodies lit up the water, redd-mates sent to sea, prodigal salmon coming home."

"The only people who wear salmon are gay men and…salmon."

"[W]hen you look at the whole thing you don't try to count the scales on the salmon, of course you don't. You see them as little silver pearls against grey and pink – isn't that right? – look at the pink of the salmon, with the bone appearing white in the centre and then grays, like the shades of mother of pearl."

"In the swirl of its pool the home-coming salmon has no intuition of anything changed."

"One pitch-dark rainy night we landed about ten o'clock at the mouth of a salmon stream when the water was phosphorescent. The salmon were running, and the myriad fins of the onrushing multitude were churning all the stream into a silvery glow, wonderfully beautiful and impressive in the ebon darkness."

"Gene Ray: Another thing, did you know your father is a fish?"

"There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth;... and there is salmons in poth."

"The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has recently emerged as a novel model system to study the immune system. In comparison to mammalian models, zebrafish are easy to genetically manipulate, highly prolific, and inexpensive to maintain in large numbers. Due to their embryonic transparency and external development, the use of zebrafish permits live visualization of developmental processes and cellular interactions without physiological disruption of tissues and organs. These features make zebrafish a potentially useful model for the study of immunological processes. In addition, the validation of zebrafish as a model to study immune responses will allow us to exploit additional powerful tools, including forward genetic and pharmacological screens."

"Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? The're no brought here without brave darin' Buy my caller herrin', Ye little ken their worth. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? O you may ca' them vulgar farin', Wives and mithers maist despairin' Ca' them lives o' men."

"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail! See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance: They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?"

"Here when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, And finds that by his strength but vainly he doth strive; His tail takes in his teeth, and bending like a bow, That's to the compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw: Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand, That, bended end to end, and flerted from the hand, Far off itself doth cast, so does the salmon vaut. And if at first he fail, his second summersaut He instantly assays and from his nimble ring, Still yarking never leaves, until himself he fling Above the streamful top of the surrounded heap."

"O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights, What is 't ye do? what life lead? eh, dull goggles? How do ye vary your vile days and nights? How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes and bites, And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles."

"Fishes that tipple in the deepe, Know no such liberty."

"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep, Your Maker's praises spout; Up from the sands ye codlings peep, And wag your tails about."

"Nothing like a cuppa after an oggy-boggy that finished up better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper."

"Our plenteous streams a various race supply, The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye, The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd, The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold, Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains."

"'Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords."

"We have here other fish to fry."

"Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue."

"All's fish they get that cometh to net."

"Now at the close of this soft summer's day, Inclined upon the river's flowery side, I pause to see the sportive fishes play, And cut with finny oars the sparkling tide."

"Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea; What is my tail cut off? A rushing river; And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever."

"'Fish?' 'Some people like the oddest things.'"

"Fishes light up the interior of the sea like fires."

"Piscem natare doces"