Friday, February 27, 2009

9.15 Looking upward and forward

This is a fish named the barreleye (http://www.livescience.com/animals/090223-fish-head.html) from Indonesia. The two dots above the mouth are not the eyes, they actually are the nostrils. Where are the eyes? They are inside the see-through head looking upward. The two green caps are in fact lenses of the eyes. The tubular eyes can point forward as well when the barreleye has to find its way around. Why looking up? To see the silhouette/luminescence of an overhead jellyfish or a small fish, so that it can quickly attack.

Looking upward and forward - sounds like a very short lecture on life.

2 comments:

BH said...

This fish is so beautiful!
Very interesting article!

Kay said...

Wow.
Quite a strange fish.
Thank you for writing about it, I know a little bit more about the world now :)