For those of us who spend their childhood in the nineties, you probably at one point or another, had aspirations of growing up to be a marine biologist. Whether that be from your whale trainer Barbie, a visit to an aquarium, Jacque Cousteau or Kevin Costner. Whatever the inspiration, chances are you aren’t living life under the sea with the cast of the Little Mermaid. But for those of you who wish to connect to your childhood and get a little glimpse of what that great big ocean is home to then you’ve come to the right place.
Hi, I’m Deidre a zookeeper of ten years and your educational host of this podcast: Weird Animal Facts: Explicit. And even though we’ll be talking about your forgotten childhood dreams, this podcast is not for kids. Just because we talk about animals doesn’t make it a kids show! Adults can like animals too. And this podcast is dedicated to those adults who secretly wish that their kid would ask all the stupid and so-called embarrassing questions you’re too ashamed to ask. Like; what’s the deal with sea cucumbers? Are they food? Are they a sex toy? Sea cucumbers are a different episode because today with shine a bioluminescent light on two other animals of the waters that you have most defiantly had a curiously about. Stargazers and puffer fish. And yes, these are both fish! So, strap on your flippers, goggles and snorkel as its time to dive on in.
***Stargazers. No this is not just you and your high school hottie on a date, laying in the back of a pickup truck in the middle of a field at midnight pretending to be interested in the constellations but really wishing for some boof action and Frenching. No. A stargazer is in fact a fish. It’s a weird ass fish, but still a fish. For you eighty babies out there, imagine the underwater demonic doubleganger of Beaker from the Muppets. And I say demonic because…well, let’s describe the stargazer in a bit more detail.
Hiding underneath a thin layer of salt at the ocean floor lies a creature only Tim Burton himself could imagine up. With two bulgy eyes place on the top of its head, just peering out from beneath the sand where it hides its wide, round tear drop shaped body waiting patiently for its food to swim over top. Appearing to always be in a bad mood, the stargazer could easily give grumpy cat a run for its money because just below those on top of the head eyes is a long wide moth that is filled with what looks to be sharp dagger like teeth! Only they aren’t teeth at all. Ranging anywhere from 8 to over 20 inches this wide gapping mouthed creature should be lurking underneath every mer-child’s bed, haunting them in their nightmares with the fear that they, just like the stargazer’s next meal, will be vacuumed into the empty void that is this monstrous fish’s mouth!
Before we get too deep in to the mouth of the stargazer I should clear up something as I’m sure that there are at least one of you out there who is thinking that the stargazer is that same fish from Finding Nemo; you know the one that’s shaped like a pancake, lays on its side under the sand with both of its eyes on one side of its body. Well, sorry, but that’s not the same fish. Oh! Also stargazers are also as different to flounders as they are to monk fish; who look similar but aren’t
There are so many fish! How do you keep them all straight?
Easy! With taxonomy classification! (Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) That flat pancake like fish you may be thinking of, from Finding Nemo is called a Flounder; not to be confused with Flounder from the Little Mermaid, who isn’t a flounder, even though his name is flounder. Anyways, the stargaze, flat flounder and monk fish are in the same class, but that’s not really saying a whole like considering that half of all known vertebrates are also in this class: Actinopterygii. From there, these three fishes verge. So the stargazer, flounder and monk fish are no more similar than you are to an armadillo or a chipmunk. But to help you tell the difference, just look at how their bodies are shaped. The flounder from Finding Nemo is literally flat. While the stargazer we’re talking about today is a round, chunky, tear drop shaped grumpy looking fish from your nightmares. Which could be true for the monk fish, but the monk fish looks more like a combination of the stargazer, flounder and angler fish.
When it comes to the stargazer fish, you know that fish we are actually talking about today, we humans really don’t have too much to worry about…I mean you should worry as there is a species in the Mediterranean that have killed a few humans. But you should be fine. As long as you just avoid the ocean at all cost!
Wait! How does this fish less then two feet long kill a man… or woman? I thought you said those sharp pointy things in their mouth weren’t teeth? They aren’t but that’s not what you should be worried about. As a fish the stargazer has some of those common fish features, such as gills, and fins. Just above those pectoral fins located on the gill covers are spines. And guess what those spines are equip with…venom. There are plenty of texts out there that will tell you that stargazer venom won’t kill you, but then again is can be very painful and even induce shock, so from this animal expert to you; I’d like to advice not to fuck with it. And I say this because this fish isn’t going to hunt you down. They only use those venom spines for protection. They don’t want to get eaten! So whether it’s a stupid snorkeler like you or a hungry sea critter hoping for a quick meal, either way that predator is going to swim away in a lot of pain, but a lesson learned.
And if you’re still worried about accidently stepping on one of these guys while they are secretly hidden don’t worry because its not like they live everywhere! Just in nearly every ocean….Anyways let’s get back to the weirdness of this fish.
There are close to 50 species of stargazers and not all of them have venomous spines (so that should make you feel better), and some of them even have another special feature: Electricity!! But the reason for this electricity is a mystery. Normally with a creature produces electricity it’s to either stun its prey or to reanimate the dead. But unlike electric eels who produce up to 600 volts to do just that the stargazers only produce 50 volts (sad noise). So then why produce electricity at all? There is a thought that perhaps its to scare a predator, but the thing is stargazers don’t just produce electricity when a bad guys arounds, its also when pop out of the sand to eat an unsuspecting critter. Why are they shooting out zaps during dinner? My thought is perhaps they have evolution to thank. Maybe long ago the stargazers had a stronger zap, but if you’ll remember from the shark episode 31 we learned about the shark’s sixth sense of them sensing electrical currents. What if, so to not be as well spotted by the sharks their zapping diminished over the generations!? Again, this is me just guessing. I’m not an evolutionary biologist. But what I do know is that animals evolve so to survive. We don’t know when stargazers got those venom spikes, nor do we know how big and powerful the stargazers once where. But what we do know from fossil records is that one from over 7.5 million years ago had a brain worm that filled its brain cavity with shit. Yay! Go science.
That’s the think about the great big, deep, scary ocean; we don’t know much about it. And its that unknown that makes its scary. But we do know some: like the electricity the stargazer produces is created via modified eye muscles while most other fish will use specialized electroreceptors. We also know that while the stargazer is hiding under the sand, it has more adaptions to help keep them hidden. Think about if you were in a horror movie and had to run away from the killer. Once you find a somewhat looking save hiding spot under the bed you have to cover your mouth or hold your breath to keep from panting like a dog on a hot summer’s day so that the killer won’t find you. Same thing with the stargazer, only they are the killers. First, they breath through their nose, no their mouth. Which is weird in multiple accounts, as most fish breath through their mouths and the fact that some stargazers will sit under the sand with only their eyes and mouth above with both open. But why don’t they breathe through their mouth? Because what comes in through a fish’s mouth or nose goes out their gills. Just like you don’t what your panting breath to give away your location to that murderer, the stargazer doesn’t want its prey to sense it. In addition, their gills are fringed like the edges of an owl’s wing feathers so to muffle the sound of their breathing so that little critter doesn’t know what’s got them until its too late… if they even get the chance to figure it out before: gulp…death.
Speaking of death. Its time to kill my literary soul in: Scientific Names are Hard.
Atlantic Stargazer: Uranoscopus scaber
Giant Stargazer: Kathetostoma giganteum
***Puffer fish-the beach balls of the sea! Well technically an actual beach ball is already sea related plus, unless you’re a dolphin and otter you aren’t going to be playing with a puffer fish so… let me retry that.
Puffer fish: the only inflating fish.
Fun Fact: It isn’t known if dolphins actually are getting high off puffer fish, which is something I’ve toyed to in the past. Because dolphins are such devils their so-called “intoxicated” behavior that has been observed after they have been seen poking at a puffed-up puffer fish is similar behavior to normal dolphin doughbagery. So maybe they’re just high on life.
Puffer fish, another fish that has made guest appearances on both The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo (and I think is Pudge the fish from Lilo and Stitch just not in his puffed-up form) is a fish that many people have heard of. If you haven’t, have no fear as you’ve got your pal Deidre here to help you to understand the ways and appearance of a puffer fish.
There are over 100 species of pufferfish in the entire world! And they come in all difference sizes, from only an inch long to over 2 feet! And get this, puffer fish aren’t always puffed. When they aren’t that beach ball image we all associate with the pufferfish they are a pretty ordinary looking fish. NO! I take that back, because they are way cuter! Take the porcupine puffer fish. When not inflated, and in a normal pufferfish form, when viewed from the front looks like a cute adorable spotted anime version of a fish. Large puppy dog eyes, tiny slit for a mouth and cute black polka dots covering its tiny adorable body. And what’s even cuter is if fish understood and had the capability to smile it would look like they have two sets of adorable beaver like buck teeth, a pair on the top jaw and lower. However, though, these are not teeth, nor do we know if fish can smile and if they recognize a smile in the same form as we do.
Before we get too philosophical on the happiness of a pufferfish let’s explain these weird “teeth” like things on the porcupine puffer. It may look like the fish has lips with teeth hidden underneath but those are actually a beak. Yep, just like a turtle or a bird has a beak, so does this fish.
Fun Fact: And those beaks are made out of keratin, you know just like your teeth. So I guess we can call them teeth.
And to add to the puffer’s over all cuteness, they are also very awkward swimmers. You know that friend of yours who is… clumsy? Well imagine the aquatic version of that. Only I’m guessing your friend is clumsy from paying hooky during P.E. and never learned about coordination and isn’t clumsy because they don’t have a ribs or a pelvic.
What?! This fish doesn’t have ribs or a pelvic. Do they have bones? Are they an invertebrate? Oh they have bones and are most certainly a vertebrate, with a backbone. But the reason for not having ribs or a pelvic has to do with their defense. And if you haven’t figured it out already by the name or by what we’ve already talked about; they blow up.
These fish are small. They’re cute, they’re tiny. There’s a reason why people like to eat mini muffins; their cute and bit sized! Pufferfish are just too cute for predators to pass by. And as an animal with a life, who doesn’t want to get eaten, you can bet your ass that fish is going to do what it can to survive. So if that means evolving away ribs and pelvic bones so to better allow its body to blow up great!
I should mention that because the pufferfish lives in the water, when it blows up it isn’t filling up with air. It lives in the water so how could it fill with air? Its water. They blow up with water. Duh.
How does not having ribs or a pelvic help with their inflation? And would it be called inflation?
Scientifically speaking: to inflate refers to filling something with air or gas. Thereby making it inaccurate to say that a pufferfish inflates.
Okay so if a pufferfish isn’t inflating then what is it doing?
(Crickets)…Sucking in water. Pufferfish; when threatened will begin to gulp in water. They suck in so much water that it will actually increase the size of their stomach 10-15 times larger then it originally was. Your ribs and pelvic are all connected to the rest of your body. In episode 36 we learned about the Chuckwalla; a lizard that lives in the deserts of North America who will also puff up as a defense. Being that they are on land, they fill with air. But unlike the pufferfish, chuckwallas do have ribs and a pelvic most likely due to the fact that it would be pretty hard to survive the land life in the desert otherwise. Plus their environment plus the predators they come across in the desert haven’t given them a need to get rid of those bones. As for the pufferfish. They live in the water. They can just float to get around. Plus they puff up way larger then a chuckwalla could ever dream!
Coming back to the porcupine pufferfish, they not only puff up, as you can guess, but they are called a porcupine pufferfish for a reason. They have spines! Similar but not at all the same as the star gazer. Where the stargazer only had a couple the porcupine pufferfish has spines that cover their entire body, that when not big like a water balloon, you can hardly see, but, just like when a hedgehog gets bigger (due to different anatomy then our pufferfish) their spines become much more danger.
Fun Fact: When we think of fish, we think of them having scales. Well not all fish have scales and the pufferfish, instead of having those traditional scales have spines instead. Scientist think their scales evolved in to spines as they are made up of the same thing. -And if you really want to know how crazy weird pufferfish spins are go to our Instagram page @wafpodcast to see the skeleton of one of these weirdos.
In addition to not having ribs or a pelvic or even scales all to help this fish to triple in size its also thought that their stomach, so to allow all that air to be stored after gulping in, might have lost some of its digesting abilities, meaning that this little fish’s intestines get to do all the work.
Speaking of doing work, it takes a lot of work to eat one of these bad boys. But why the hell would you want to eat one?! Oh right, because they’re so cute. Not all pufferfish have the spines like the porcupine pufferfish, so it could be easier to eat one of them, and if someone was stupid enough, you know like us humans, to try and eat one, you could easily die.
Many people know that Japan has a luxury delicacy food item called fugu, and whether or not you know its name you have possibly heard that it takes a trained and licensed chef to cut, serve and sell a pufferfish as food. Why? Because it can fucking kill you?! There’s a reason why people assume dolphins are getting high off these fish. They are poisonous! Even their skin has this poison on it, so just licking one can make you extremely sick. That’s why only licensed professionals can prepare it. Many of us will go for the generic brand of food items to save a few bucks, but in world of eating pufferfish, I would suggest forking over that money for the real deal, because if you go to an unlicensed fugu chef you could literally die.
One single pufferfish has enough poison to kill 30 grown adult humans. The only animals known to eat pufferfish (I mean aside from us humans who do have to have it specially prepared by an expert) are sharks, and they can eat that sucker whole. Their poison is called tetrodotoxin and its so specialized to pufferfish that the toxic is named after their scientific name which I will most defiantly butcher as poorly as an unlicensed fugu chef.
Scientific Names are Hard:
Porcupine Pufferfish: Didodon holocanthus
Tiger Pufferfish: Takifugu rubripes
Tetrodotoxin is one of the deadliest poisons in the world to humans making it one of the most dangerous animals in the world; if you eat it. Who the idiot daredevil to learn what part of the pufferfish was safe to eat? Was he like some evil villain who was determined to eat one of these things and forced him minion and prisoners to eat different sections until they stopped dying? Who does that? Humans are so messed up.
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But if you want to be one of those not so messed up humans you can do your part to help out the ocean where these two animals call home. Although at this time neither of these fish are considered endangered their waters are at risk every day; over fishing, pollution, dying of coral reefs. And there’s a very simple thing you can do to help protect wildlife and their home; share what you have learned here with all of your friends! The most people who know about the wonderfully weird animals we share this world with the more people will want to help them. The weird and wacky, traits and adaptations of every animal is what makes them special and worth saving. And together we can do just that. So let’s save the oceans by simply talking about it. Because as we all learned from Ariel, and Jacque Cousteau is that the ocean is a wonderful place worth saving. As for Water world and Kevin Costner, I don’t know if I really learned anything from that movie aside from don’t fuck up the planet. So let’s do that! Not fuck it all up. But you can still be weird. Please be weird.