archer fish

Weird Job

 in Florida / Newfoundland / Our Quest / Wildlife/animals  tagged archer fish / Denvery aquarium / dolphin research / L'Anse aux Meadows / Pueblo Chieftain / Rookery Bay / sea urchin / shark tagging / travel / University of Miami / Viking lodge / whale watching by

When our local paper asked for wacky, wonderful job stories, I had to share mine: “Can I squirt him in the eye?”  I felt weird being so blunt with the brave little geek in braids, but having graduated from high school in the seventies, I knew I’d feel weirder negotiating with five teens over shark tagging tasks.  So when the grad students got our shark situated under their bodies, I got to test his reflex, and his eye membrane nictated nicely which meant that he wasn’t too stressed.  On the next round I clipped a bit of tissue off another […]

Death Squirt

 in Our Quest / Wildlife/animals  tagged archer fish / Colorado / Denver aquarium / mangrove swamp / travel / volunteer work by

A beetle picked his way along a branch above a mangrove swamp. Wham! A geyser of water smacked him right in the kisser, dropping him into the water where he was snatched down a hungry gullet. On the other side of the globe, in Denver’s Downtown Aquarium, an innocent child climbs a ladder to stretch his arm over an exhibit and offer the fish a cricket. Wham! A powerful spurt smacks his palm dead-center, jolting the little guy with backsplash. The exhibit and swamp are each populated by hand-sized archer fish which specialize in precision squirts ranging to six feet.  I’d been captivated by an article about archers sometime back and am thrilled to find that the Denver aquarium not only has archer fish, it […]