Mark Sawyer, a 53-year-old angler, caught a peculiar fish in Magpie Lake in Cambridge, a carp species with a bream's tail fin and a carp head.
At first glance, this fish looks no different from ordinary goldfish, but on closer inspection it reveals that it has the characteristics of 3 species of fish. Mark Sawyer sent a picture of the fish to some marine scientists for identification, who explicitly said it was a "mixed-race fish."
One of the experts said the fish had a one in a million chances of appearing, and that its head, body and tail fins were not part of a species and had never been seen in the UK before. The expert speculated that a non-native fish may have been released into the lake, and this "foreign fish" mateed with native fish to produce such "mixed offspring".
In addition to "mixed-race" fish, there are all kinds of strange fish in this world, let's take a look!
Cubicus Boxfish
Spotted box puffers can be identified by their box-shaped body, bright yellow and black spots. The species occurs in tropical and temperate marine waters of the Indo-Western Pacific Ocean. Males have a slight bluish-grey body color, while females have a slightly dark green color.
Juveniles have black spots about the size of their pupils. As the fish grows, the spots become smaller and browner, sometimes even turning into white spots with black edges. Spotted pufferfish inhabit corals and reefs at depths of 1 m to 40 m. Adult spotted box pufferfish usually live alone, appear on deeper coastal slopes and freshwater lakes, and shelter near reefs. Juveniles usually inhabit rocks and reefs that can be sheltered.
In the summer in New South Wales, Australia, we can see that they usually appear in a collective fashion. They feed on a variety of benthic organisms, such as molluscs, crustaceans, fish, and algae.
Psychedelic catfish (Histiophryne psychedelica)
Psychedelic caries inhabit Indonesia, with a yellow-brown pattern covering their entire body, along with a pattern of white swirling stripes, hence the use of the word "psychedelic" in their names. These irregular stripes form a pattern unique to each person and act as a camouflage, helping to avoid predators.
Not only is the psychedelic catfish special in color, but what's even more bizarre is that it can't swim at all! Instead, it uses its pectoral fins to walk along the seabed, and sometimes uses its fins to set itself offshore and jump around the sea.
Known for their violent devouring of prey, these fish strategically hide in tiny crevices in corals, obscuring the passages through which shrimp and small fish pass. Its thick fish skin protects them from scratches, and the psychedelic caries squirm tightly in these holes, waiting for the moment when their prey passes by and swallow them in one bite.
Trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus)
The body of the trumpetfish is very slender, the head is strongly compressed, and it has a mouth as long as a trumpet. There is a prominent whisker on the chin at the tip of the lower jaw, the dorsal and fins are located behind the body, and there are 8-12 dorsal spines in front of the soft dorsal fins. The soft dorsal fin is located opposite the fin, and the caudal fin is rounded.
They inhabit the southern Atlantic Ocean, usually near coral reefs. The most common color of trumpet fish is brown to reddish brown with irregular black spots or brown spots. They are also sometimes grey-blue, bright yellow, or green, because they can easily change color to camouflage themselves according to their surroundings.
Hornfish are large carnivorous ambush predators that camouflage among large herbivorous fish and then hide in the shadows until the right time comes. Another strategy is to hang vertically around gorgonians or drift with the current, ambushing prey downstream by sucking. Their mouths have elastic tissue that allows them to open to the diameter of their bodies, allowing them to eat prey larger than their mouths.