Comments on: Scientists Solve The Mystery Of Why This Fish Is So Freakin’ Crazy

By: TGIM: See-Through-Shi Fish. | Deep Sea News

TGIM: See-Through-Shi Fish. | Deep Sea News — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:19:30 +0000

[...] Big hat tip to Katie at DSN’s Barrel-eye fish post. [...]

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:59:52 +0000

Holy Cow….it was on Colbert…did you see it?? I was talking about this in my intro oceans class and one of my students told me he had already seen it…on Colbert!?!?

Go to http://www.colbertnation.com and search for the video of the barreleye.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:33:29 +0000

Yeah, it makes it fun trying to explain to the professors here why as a future biologist I’m such a nut with a love for optical physics. Then my video and tech geek love which helps a lot with ROV stuff(Yeah! Going down to Ft. Lauderdale next week to help with a cruise!! Boo..I don’t get to go on the cruise just set up equipment and train someone else on it’s use. (Darn school getting in the way of education!))

By: irradiatus

irradiatus — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:34:03 +0000

“specular highlights”

Your CGI background is shining through, Eric.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:20:25 +0000

Burton: this 6″ fish was in the intense lightfield of the ROV. From specular highlights on the fish in the photo’s it looks like this ROV has 4 to 6 front illuminating lights. Probably each 400 to 500watts of light so 1600 to 3000 watts of light to cut through the inky dark.

Hm…couldn’t the specular highlights be analyzed to determine properties of the headshield?

By: burton page

burton page — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:49:38 +0000

was the light coming from the fish itself? it looked way too perfect for it to have been shone on the fishes head so perfectly the whole time without moving out of context with the fishes head even the slightest bit, even when the fish quickly escaped the collection tube.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:13:37 +0000

So. Many. Questions!
Has anyone been fortunate enough to observe it feeding?
Do the scales help with light attenuation/gathering, what is the fluid within the shield? Eye structure? FOV? IOR of the shield? IOR of the fluid? IOR of the eye lens? Is it lensed? Argghhhh!

By: MBARI YouTube Channel | Deep Sea News

MBARI YouTube Channel | Deep Sea News — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:32:21 +0000

[...] Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently unleashed their new YouTube Channel. Of course it features Macropinna but you can also see Humboldt squid. A new video (below) on Davidson Seamount that discusses [...]

By: Cool Green Science: The Conservation Blog of The Nature Conservancy » Cool Green Morning: Wednesday, Feb. 25

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:01:41 +0000

[...] Cool Green Transparent Fish: Learn more about the barreleye. [...]

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:02:02 +0000

In answer to Irradiatus’ comment, the fish’s skull is actually well underneath the eyes, with a slight bony ridge between the eyes. In fact, that’s all you see in the textbook illustrations of this fish (e.g. http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/PicturesSummary.php?ID=2704&what=species). What’s really interesting to me is that the fish has scales behind its eeyes, so the cowling somehow develops over the main scales of the fish. All this work just to steal prey from the tentacles of a siphonophore. but I guess it beats chasing food for a living…