▲ Some flying fish have bright pectoral fins with bright patterns.
Why do flying fish fly?
In our cognition, "eagle strikes long sky, fish fly shallow bottom" is the general consensus. Birds should fly in the sky, and fish should swim in the water.
There are some kinds of fish, refusing to take the usual road, "flying". So, what exactly is a flying fish? Can it really fly?
Red "Flying Fish"
In ancient China, there was a strange fish that was often recorded in the classics. It is called "Wen Ray", also known as "flying fish", and it is said that it has two wings and can fly in the air. The Song Dynasty's "Erya Wing" wrote: "Wen ray out of the South China Sea, the largest one is about a foot long, with wings and tails. A flying fish, flying in groups on the sea. ”
Are texts credible? Someone started to examine. There was a strange man in the Qing Dynasty named Nie Huang. He likes to go north and south, and he loves to paint, but he does not like to paint traditional landscapes, but runs away to marine life. He traveled the world, talked to fishermen, and even ran to the wet market to see it with his own eyes and painted them one by one.
▲ The flying fish in "Sea Fault Map". Painted/Nie Juan
In the year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1697) and the year of the Emperor (1699), Nie Huang witnessed a fish twice in the Fujian vegetable market. He believes that this is the legendary Wen Ray. Why? Just because its pectoral fin is particularly large, the end is to the tail, which is in line with the "wing and tail alignment" record.
In addition, Nie Huang also wrote down other characteristics of this fish: first, the scales around the body are red, and second, the head is thorny. That's not right. In reality, there are fish that grow into such a fish, but they will never fly, and naturally they are not the rays in ancient books.
▲ In addition to the single-spined leopard bream, there are several other species of bream whose bodies are also red, such as this oriental leopard bream.
Judging from the characteristics of the head with spines, red body, pectoral fin long to tail, and protruding fins, this should be a fish of the family Cyprinidae and Leopard Bream, most likely "single-spined leopard bream". It is the reddest of the Chinese leopard bream.
It may also be a scorpion of the order Scorpiote and Scorpene, but the dorsal fin is extremely long and has a distinct tiger stripe, which does not match the painting. Let's take it as another option for now.
As soon as everyone sees a leopard bream, they will immediately have a feeling: this fish can fly, otherwise what will it do with such a large "wing"? The pectoral fin of the leopard bream is extremely developed, and when fully opened, the whole fish resembles a circular flying saucer.
▲ In Western paintings, leopard bream is chased by sharks and flew onto a boat.
With such large wings, flying in the air should not be a problem, right? Not only Nie Juan, but even Westerners felt this way. There are many old paintings in Europe, which depict scenes of leopard bream flying.
In some paintings, in order to avoid the predation of sharks and loaches, the leopard bream flock flew into the air in a hurry and crashed into the mast of the sailing ship, frightening the crew not lightly; in some paintings, the leopard bream was directly taken away by seagulls when flying in the air...
▲ In Western painting, when the leopard bream flies, it is taken away by seagulls.
Unfortunately, these scenes exist only in legends and paintings, and have never been confirmed. Whether in terms of habits or body structure, leopard bream cannot fly. Its body is wrapped in hard scales, it is very stiff, the swimming speed is very slow, even if it desperately jumps out of the water, it can only weakly "snap" back into the water, unable to reach the take-off speed.
As for the other possible real body, the scorpionfish, it is even more impossible to fly, it is basically the same as the swimming speed of your goldfish, swaying.
▲ Scorpionfish. It is also a fish that cannot fly.
Leopard bream usually live on the seabed. Benthic fish usually have large pectoral fins so that when they lie on the seabed, the pectoral fins can form a full momentum with the tail fins to support the body. When swimming close to the bottom of the sea, the pectoral fins can also be balanced.
The pectoral fin of the leopard bream also has more communication functions. The fins have eye-catching leopard prints and eye spots. When courting, males and females will swim with their pectoral fins open and show their feelings with color, just like the "winged bird" on the seabed, the picture is too beautiful.
▲ Two leopard bream. There is the taste of "Liang Zhu"...
Nie Huang twice saw with his own eyes and quoted the "flying fish" that the scriptures had verified, but it was neither able to fly nor was it a literary ray in ancient books, which was too embarrassing. But Nie Huang probably didn't realize that the other kind of fish he had drawn in the "Sea Mistake Map" was the real body of Wen Ray.
The goose feather fish is the real body
The ancient book "Huiyuan" records that there is a kind of "goose feather fish" in the East China Sea that can fly. Fishermen catch this kind of fish without netting, only use a canoe boat, brushed with white reflective oyster powder, rowed to the sea at night, supported a pole to hang a lamp, illuminated the hull, goose feather fish flew into the boat. If there are too many fish, quickly turn off the lights, otherwise the ship will sink.
▲ The goose feather fish in "Sea Mistake Map", this is the real body of the flying fish. Painted/Nie Juan
When Nie Huang read the literature, he thought this fish was very interesting, but he had never witnessed this fish. When he lived in Fujian, a Zhangnan man named Chen Panshe told him: This fish is called flying fish on our side, and it is caught in this way; it has a long and narrow body, fine scales, a green belly on its back, two pectoral fins like wings, and two inches (about 6 centimeters) long. The tail fin is slender, which can help with flight, and gives Nie Juan a sketch.
However, Nie Huang believes that the wings of this fish are not large enough, which does not conform to the characteristics of the "wings and tails" of the ray Chinese ancient books, so it is not a wen ray. In fact, it was he who was too critical of words, resulting in a blinding leaf. From various clues, the goose feather fish is exactly the real flying fish, and it is also the legendary wen ray.
▲ Flying fish in the water. It can be seen that the pectoral fins are well developed.
From the description of the "goose feather fish" it can be determined that it is a species of the order Jaw Needlefish, flying fish family. There is a genus of "swallow rays" under the flying fish family. This swallow ray is actually a combination of the ancient name ray and today's common name "swallow fish".
Flying fish are slender, swim quickly, often move in groups, and once chased by large fish, they jump out of the water and glide with their fins open. Some flying fish species even have developed ventral fins, which is equivalent to two more small wings. The four wings spread out together and fly better.
▲ Some flying fish have also developed ventral fins. Photo/Visual China
But flying fish don't fly like birds. Their wings don't move, they just glide. Slide a section back to the surface of the sea, and you can also use your tail to quickly hit the water and take off again. In case of a tailwind, flying 100 meters away is no problem.
The Jin Dynasty "Wu Dufu" has a sentence "Wen Ray flies at night and touches", which tells another habit of flying fish: light. At night, flying fish especially like to gather in places where there is light, and humans will use this habit to catch flying fish. The ancients used oil lamps, and today's people use high-power electric lamps, which can illuminate the sea surface as if it were day. Flying fish have come to the light and throw themselves into the net.
▲ Flying fish hit the water with their tail fins to make themselves glide farther.
Once, I flipped through the "Chinese Zoology: Jaw Needlefish Order" and found that the "lun" of "Wen Ray Flying at Night and Touching Lun" was interpreted as the lun (pronounced guan) of lupine. So the meaning became "Wen Ray flew in the night and crashed into the fisherman's turban." Have I been wrong all along? Hurry up and check, "lun" has two pronunciations, when speaking with a turban, read guan; when speaking as a fishing line, read lun.
Li Zhouhan of the Tang Dynasty commented on "Wen Ray Flying at Night and Touching Lun": "Lun, small net also." "Touch lun is also a special word, meaning to throw into the net, so the interpretation of the "Chinese Zoology : Jaw Needlefish Order" is wrong.
Flying fish "how can it be good"?
Flying fish meat is a very affordable source of seaside meat. The Taiwanese dry it into dried fish, wrapped and fried, while the Japanese make the freshest flying fish into sushi, kneaded with raw meat, or vinegared, grilled and then kneaded, the taste is light, and the sweetness follows.
▲ Fried flying fish from Taiwan Night Market.
Nie Huang said that someone told him that there was "a lump of white silk in the belly of the flying fish, like the inside of the spider's belly." At night, it also glows. At the time, this thing was abandoned and not eaten.
Now it seems that this mass of objects is the eggs of flying fish. Its eggs are very small, white and yellow, tangled with filaments, and look like a mixture of spider silk and spider eggs. The so-called "like a spider's belly" probably means this.
▲ Flying fish eggs themselves are yellow.
Flying fish spawn on floating debris (seaweed, branches, etc.) on the surface of the sea, and those silks can fix the eggs to the floating objects.
The BBC documentary "Life" once filmed such a picture: a large coconut leaf floating on the surface of the sea, attracting a large group of flying fish to lay eggs, in the blink of an eye, the coconut leaves were wrapped in eggs and silk into large rice dumplings, and even many flying fish were wrapped in it and suffocated. Because the eggs were too heavy, the big rice dumpling sank to the bottom of the sea with the eggs and dead fish, and the picture was quite mad.
In the eyes of modern people, the Qing Dynasty people actually threw away the flying fish eggs, which is simply too ignorant of goods, and it is a well-known ingredient today.
▲ Flying fish eggs dyed red.
Japanese people like to eat flying fish eggs, and the small grain roe commonly found on warship rolls is flying fish eggs. Because its beige color is not good-looking, it is often dyed red and green with food coloring, and it is often mistakenly called "crab" in Japanese restaurants in China.
The three largest sources of flying fish eggs are Taiwan, Indonesia and Peru. Taiwan's preservation and processing technology is high, and the quality of flying fish eggs far exceeds that of the other two places, making it the world's first.
▲ The pectoral fins of flying fish are very large. Photo/Visual China
What most people can't imagine is that Taiwanese people don't cut open the belly of the fish to get flying fish eggs. Every time the flying fish breeding season comes, fishermen tie foam to grass mats, and then connect the grass mats to grow into dragons and float on the surface of the sea. Flying fish look, a lot of floating objects, fast spawning, fast spawning.
When the fish are gone, the fishermen put away the mats, pluck the lumps of fish eggs, and send them to the processing plant to remove the filaments, dye them with food coloring, and put them on the sushi.
▲ Flying fish gliding on the water. Photo/Visual China
Some animal protection people are worried that flying fish are also an important food for other marine fish, and a large number of eggs may damage the ecological balance, so they call on everyone not to eat flying fish eggs.
I think it is useless for individuals not to eat, the key is to control the catch. As long as it is scientifically fished, diners do not have to feel guilty and can enjoy the dish to the fullest.
- END -
Author 丨 Zhang Chenliang
Edit 丨 West Lake vinegar fish
Some of the content sources | 《Notes on The Sea Mistake Map II》
Unspecified picture | 《Notes on The Sea Mistake Map II》
Zhang Chenliang, a "naturalist" who focuses on science communication, the planning director of "Museum" magazine, the operator of @Museum Magazine, and a member of The China Association of Popular Science Writers. He is the author of the series Notes on Sea Mistakes.