Mr. Nature here–and today our safari takes us to tropical shores around the world.
These small fish, mudskippers, have intrigued me ever since I first encountered them, as a little boy, in Bertha Morris Parker’s Natural History–and in the Sunday color comics, Mark Trail.
But I never knew, until I found this video today, that they could, well, scream.
Mudskippers live in intertidal zones and when the tide goes out, they emerge from their burrows and wander around on the mud, feed, mate, court, and fight over territory. They can breathe air through their skin, like frogs: which means they don’t dare dry out or they can’t breathe; but as long as they can stay moist, they can live out of water. And roll their eyes independently of one another. Like chameleons.
As for the screaming, suffice it to say I have doubts as to the reliability of this assertion. But even without the screaming–they can make other sounds as well–it makes for pretty cool video.
God’s stuff–just when you think you’ve figured it out, you run into mudskippers.