Fish
9 articles-
Plastic Is the Ocean’s New Junk Food
By 2050, it’s likely that plastic in the oceans will outweigh all the oceans’ fish. -
Fish Can Be Smarter Than Primates
To understand the plurality of intelligence, look under water. -
This Legendary Deep-Sea Fish Sighting Continues to be Debated After 60 Years
Once, while fishing for salmon, I hooked a clam. It fought bravely, and when I finally pulled it from the water I could see that I hadn’t just snagged it, as you might expect, but that it had taken the bait willingly. These are minor points; what matters here is that the clam, so different […] -
The Hated, Invasive Parasite That’s Actually a Key Part of Its Ecosystem
Sea lampreys showing off their unusual mouthsJoanna Gilkeson/USFWS Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Several years ago, a young man bow-fishing on New Jersey’s Raritan river spotted a long, thin creature in the murky water. He shot the animal through the neck, reeled it in, and posed for photographs. […] -
This Tool-Using Sniper Changed What We Think About Fish
An archerfish lets fly at its unsuspecting prey.Ingo Rischawy / Schuster lab, University of Bayreuth Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Few animals have had their cognitive abilities maligned like fish. Myths about their dullness abound—no doubt you’ve heard the one about goldfish’s three-second memories.But have you also heard […]
-
Weaving the World’s Stories Like an Expert Carpet-Maker
To explain her motivations as a writer, Anna Badkhen quotes the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert: “you have little time you must give testimony.” Badkhen recently stopped by the Nautilus office to sit for an interview and take us behind the scenes of “The Men Who Planted Trees,” her cover story for the Spring 2014 Nautilus […]
-
Strange Eyeless Fish Creates Its Own Sonar Signals to “See”
The blind cavefish alongside two of its sighted relativesImage Courtesy of NYU Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Deep in some pitch-black, underwater caves in Mexico, there lives a peculiar little pinkish-white fish. Only about four inches long, this albino has taste buds on the outside of its lower […]
-
An Eel Swims in the Bronx
George Jackman scales the Bronx River’s 182nd Street dam while working with the eel ladder (at top-right).John Waldman Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . In the annals of natural history, there is perhaps no fish so singularly unusual, even mysterious, as Anguilla, the eels. Unlike every other migratory fish […]
-
Handy Genetic Switch Helps You Grow Hands—or Paws, or Fins
When an enormous four-finned fish surfaced in a South African fisherman’s catch in 1938, scientists were fascinated by its resemblance to fossilized creatures that had died out millions of years ago. The fish, called a coelacanth, turned out to be the first descendant of those organisms ever spotted by humans. The two living species identified […]