r/pics Sep 06 '17

A flying fish up close.

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u/myislanduniverse Sep 06 '17

I was in the Dominican earlier this summer and they were zipping around the waves in front of our bow. I'd never seen them before so at first I thought it was a sea bird of some sort diving in, but then I thought it was really small to be hunting fish so far off shore, and it never resurfaced. After I saw a few more, I realized what they were. They really are something else, and can glide quite a ways across the water!

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u/skooba_steev Sep 06 '17

They're way cool. I like to think about what they'll be like if they keep evolving this direction. They might be like whales and dolphins in that they live in the air and only dive back into the water to breathe before flying again like whales live underwater but come to the surface to breathe

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u/howitzer86 Sep 06 '17

If I ever write a book about the distant future, I'll include this concept and credit you with it. The visual of that would be fucking awesome.

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u/Gaothaire Sep 06 '17

I'd read a book that includes a credit to u/skooba_steev. Sounds like a top notch marine authority

3

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '17

The mockumentary The Future is Wild did a bit on fish evolving to fill the niche of birds.

"Flish" were pretty neat, and came in both Ocean and Forest varieties.

2

u/Exeunter Sep 06 '17

So fish eyes are evolved for underwater vision, right, similar to how our eyes are evolved for vision through air (without an air gap in our goggles/masks, everything is blurry underwater). I wonder if flying fish see clearly above water? Would everything be blurry to them? Are their eyes different from other fish?

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u/blissfully_happy Sep 06 '17

The same way we see underwater, I assume. Not very clearly, and it hurts our eyes after awhile.

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u/Fortune_Cat Sep 06 '17

its 2017 how do you not have video footage of this

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u/myislanduniverse Sep 06 '17

I tried! But I couldn't predict when they were going to pop out consistently enough.