|
|
Have you seen this fish before?
This fish is known as a yellow-spotted burrfish or Cyclichthys spilostylus. This particular specimen is in the juvenile stage. As they grow, hard spines more typical of this
family will replace the soft fleshy tentacles. The adult reaches a length of 28cm.It is a tropical fish and was brought to the JLB Smith Institute by a fisherman from Port Alfred (along the south-east coast of Africa), for identification after he found it sruggling in a rock pool. Fascinating fish such as these, many tropical, have been arriving at the JLB Smith Institute for the last fifty years. Packages containing fish would arrive from far addressed to the "Fish Prof", who we are certain, was in a hurry to get the interesting fish into formalin to preserve it. But how do these fish get to the coast of South Arica? During Autumn, when warm currents from
the tropics come rushing past the south coast of Africa, eddies of warm water get flung out from these currents to the coast, bringing with them these interesting tropical fish species.
Return to Budding Scientist's Main Index.
|
