Fish needs see-through head
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| Opinion Video | This small, dark barreleye Pisces has a see-through forehead. The two spots on the front of its face are anterior naris-like organs, not eyes. For eyes, look inside the clear masking to the couplet of green domes. Those are the lenses, and this fish is looking straight up through the top of its head. |
| © 2004 MBARI |
The fish in the picture is alive and you're looking inside its maneuver. Really. Information technology's non a medical freak. Just a sort of fish with a naturally cobwebby forehead.
A untested species, you might remember. But no. The story is odder than that.
Meet unrivaled of the fish called barreleyes. This kind lives some 600 meters deep or more (that's more than a third of a mile) in the Pacific Ocean.
A take care-finished os frontale sounds like something you might remember to mention when describing a new fish. But 70 years ago scientists didn't say a word about it when they gave the angle its official knowledge base public figure (Macropinna microstoma).
Those sooner fish scientists probably didn't know most the clear forehead. They had to cultivate from fish caught in deep nets and dragged up to the surface. The interminable trip in the lead didn't leave the samples in such good shape.
Today a scientist toilet ship cameras and other equipment down to study deep-sea creatures where they live. Since 1993, cameras from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California have met these bizarre barreleyes threefold in deep water slay the coast.
And researchers managed to catch same and bring IT to the surface in a lot better shape than usual.
What a difference meeting a live fish makes. Old reports had talked all but around slime on the front of the fish. At present researchers see that the ooz was likely the remains of the clear forehead.
The coating is hempen and like the clear canopy on a fighter aircraft super C that lets the pilot construe with what's happening, says Monterey Bay scientist Robert I Robison. In the Fish, the rounded window is wide of clear liquid and covers the eyes.
Like fighter pilots, these barreleye Pisces look out through their clear covering. Watch the picture for the pair of fat, green domes like the tops of balls, inside the head. Those are the lenses of the fish's eyes. (In the ikon, the green lenses point up, and the Fish is looking overhead.)
From each one Lens sits on top of a short, wide tube, which is the stay of the eye. That's where the make barreleye came from, and that's an odd shape for an center. We hope this won't happen, but if your eyeball fell out of your head, it would looking at like a nut. If it were Altogether Planet Send away An Eyeball Day, in that location would be lots of balls. Cats, dogs, mice, elephants and lots of other animals have round eyes.
On barreleyes' short tubes, the piece that catches the image is at the bottom. That arrangement had puzzled scientists because tubular eyes should see only what's straight in front of them and not much at the sides. That's non very convenient. It would be a bit like looking at the human race through the tube from a flap of toilet tissue.
Merely looking at a living specimen, the researchers realized that an eye tube can move. Barreleyes point it upright to wait overhead and then swing the genus Lens downward sol the tube points straight in front, like the barrel of a mini cannon.
When the eyes point wise, the Fish looks toward its pouty little mouth. Its lips abide a bit, as if they would be good for picking morsels of food out of small places.
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| A siphonophore, a long string of filmy sea creatures, swims through the water (front to the proper) snagging food in its edged tentacles. Researchers now wonder if the clear-headlike barreleye fish steals food from siphonophores. The barreleye's clear brow would protect the fish's eyes from stinging tentacles. |
| © 2001 MBARI |
What these barreleyes may do is steal food from creatures called siphonophores (sigh-FAH-nuh-4s), say the Monterey Bay scientists. Siphonophores in the area look the likes of long, tight-fitting, ultrafrizzy scarves made of bits of sick, soft film. Don't wrap one around your neck though — they sting.
But the scientists recollect the barreleye might not care about the stings. Its earn frontal bone protects its eyes. So its mouth could tan off bits of raven that the siphonophores get tangled in their frizz. A clear forehead may really be like fish goggles.
Power Words: (loosely adapted from Rube! Kids Dictionary, which is likewise the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
canopy: a covering
lense: A clear part of the heart that bends the light passing through it so light rays hit the right place for forming a picture.
siphonophores: sea creatures with clear, filmy bodies and stinging cells that band together in floating colonies. Famous example: the Portuguese human race-of-war.
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