Family finds strange, black "walking" fish

chicken. …of the sea of course!

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Sure, and I imagine part of people’s interest in this fish may be from not knowing about them. Nature is full of fascinating things that are entirely well-known yet most people have never really heard of, and when something does point them out it’s as if they were a new discovery.

For those already familiar it easily gets frustrating hearing about “mantis shrimp – as seen on the Oatmeal!” and the like. It singles things out of context and so often what is actually new or unusual gets confused or buried. At the same time, though, it’s part of the lucky ten thousand thing. I’m guessing @WarrenTerra knew handfish through stories like these, now they’ve at least seen frogfish too.

For this case, though, I think there is more to it than what was discovered. Biologists do describe new and more unusual species all the time. But you can see from the first word in the headline it was a family that found this. I can assure you that for those outside the field finding something rare is special, finding something that might be a new species is exciting like little else. Even if that species itself finds no more interest than an extra line in a long monograph.

There is a lot out there in the world, but it’s not every day an amateur can add something to our knowledge of it. To hear that someone has, that part is still inspiring news in my book.

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You make some good points, and I have to respect anyone who XKCDs me. :wink:

I suppose I should have made myself more clear. I love that people are able to find wonder in nature and I’m never against anyone learning. My issue was with the terrible video which seems to present this as something completely new (as in, never before seen by anyone) as well as some sort of mutant missing-link fish, rather than as a type of well known fish that might possibly be a unique variant (possibly). It’s sensational, rather than educational.

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Chicken. Wait, no, fish. Definitely fish.

(edit: I see that I’m way late to this joke)

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I figured, as a Leopard Seal, you’d be uniquely qualified to tell us what those fishes are like.

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Hey, they all taste the same to me. :wink:

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