One of the winners of the 2017 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, "Mudskippers Got Talent".
摄影：©daniel trim/comedy wildlife photo awards
The third Sunday of June is Father's Day every year; today we come to praise a "good father" in nature — although they are muddy, dirty, slippery; ugly in appearance, prominent in eyes, skin like mud, speckled, and have a toad mouth; but they are not afraid to hunt predators in order to breed the next generation; they are exhausted in order to feed the next generation, and they repeat "long-distance artificial respiration" for their children. This good father is the mudskipper.
More than 30 species of mudskippers live in mangrove and tidal zone ecosystems around the world, and two of them were taken off the coast of Kuwait and photographed by National Geographic photographer Thomas Peschak in the mud for hours.
Photo by Thomas Peschak
It's too hard to study the haunted fish that live in dark mud caves. As a result, scientific research on many species of mudskipper is still incomplete, and even known cases are somewhat strange, for example: there is one mudskipper that retracts its protruding eyes deep into the eye socket and then sticks them out again to keep the eyes moist, hence the name boorophthalmus (genus macrophthalmus), which means "popped eye".
Mudskippers usually look stupid,
The appearance of bad breath with open mouths is even more hilarious,
But do you know exactly what they're doing here?
The two males have "toad mouths" to each other in order to compete for mating rights
mudskipper,
They can breathe and walk on land;
You may think it's nothing special.
Can't fish such as eels and climbing perch also leave the water to survive?
And mudskippers are amphibian fish,
Whether on land or water, it can survive for a long time,
You can even jump high on land.
Mudskippers photographed off the coast of Kuwait attract females by raising their fins and jumping high
They are also the only fish that do not mate in the water.
For most of the year, mudskippers have grey or pale brown bodies, a protective color that blends with the mudflats. When the breeding season comes, the male's body color sometimes changes dramatically, taking on a pink or rose color, which can attract the opposite sex but is also easy to be detected by predators. Males can be said to risk their lives to "seduce their sisters".
Periophthalmus gracilis skeletal motion analysis
It has been found that when there are fewer females to pursue around, the males are more colorful; conversely, if the male is surrounded by females who are ready to spawn, the males may not change their body color at all.
Mudskippers are widely distributed in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, from Vietnam to north Korea and southern Japan, while in China they are widely distributed in the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas. It prefers mangroves in the intertidal zone of the tropics and subtropics.
Video source: BBC
During courtship, the males perform gorgeous performances, towering and showing off their fins, and in addition, they repeatedly jump high on the beach, which is very magical. If a female is impressed, "she" follows the male to the hole to breed, avoiding prying eyes.
Because of their mysterious whereabouts, it is also extremely difficult to shoot and study. But thanks to endoscopes and excavation tools, Ishimatsu and his team at Nagasaki University in Japan were able to piece together the breeding process of mudskippers
Male mudskippers dig out their nests one by one
Males make holes for their nests, and small holes in the surface lead to an incompletely water-filled hut; the hut has a dome that acts as an airbag; the female lays eggs on the dome, on which the male insanizes them.
After that, the female leaves after laying her eggs, leaving only the male to look after the fertilized eggs. In order to maintain the oxygen required for the fertilized eggs, the male will swim to the surface of the water again and again, take in the air in a large mouth and bring the air back to the nest and spit it out, give the child a "long-distance artificial respiration", so back and forth, time-consuming and labor-intensive; then, following the rhythm of the tide, the male fish will instead suck the air out of the hole, spit out the hole, make the water gush into the hole, make the juvenile fish hatch, and then the small fish swim out and leave one after another.
When the child needs oxygen, he exhales; the child needs water to hatch, so he sucks all the breath away, and it is all fatherly love between the children. So, if we talk about the most responsible fathers in nature when it comes to having children, the silly-looking mudskipper is at the top.
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