Flounder

DMC-TS3

ƒ/3.3

4.9 mm

1/250

100

With two eyes on top, and intricate detail in the camo spots.

Snorkeling Hualalai video compilation, best viewed in large screen mode.

The freaky feature for me is the two eyes on the same side of the body, at what looks like a haphazard angle. They seem to track separately, like a chameleon.

Stranger still, the fish does not start out that way. As a young fish, it has eyes in the regular place, but then one migrates over.

But it doesn’t go around the outside, it moves through the skull to the other side!

Talk about looking inward to one’s soul… That’s a period of serious introspection… and neuronal rewiring.

11 responses to “Flounder”

Chucil

Jan 10, 2013 at 4:48 pm

Lovely.

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jurvetson

Jan 10, 2013 at 6:05 pm

thanks. I now realize why those flounder spots look so interesting to me…. I have seen this one before (thanks flickr memory banks) and it slowly shifts before my eyes as I chase it around the bottom:

And I found some very cool summary text on the eye migration that I’ll add to the caption above here.

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sbove

Jan 10, 2013 at 6:13 pm

Nothing freakier than Flounder eyes. Except maybe the crustacean that becomes part of/replaces its host fish’s tongue: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua Bwahahaha.

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Chucil

Jan 10, 2013 at 11:57 pm

Thank you! Amazing.

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jurvetson

Jan 11, 2013 at 5:36 am

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbove] – whoa… that is freaky, a parasite that replaces an entire organ of the host. What’s that, at the tip of the tongue…

But yeah, flounder eye migration still rules for single-species freak shows:

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sbove

Jan 11, 2013 at 10:26 pm

Some great shots of fully "integrated" Cymothoa.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/cymothoa%20exigua

ps: the way Flounder eyes migrate really makes you wonder how far we can go with genetic engineering…particularly fascinating to think of what will be possible with bio-deposition… commandeering genomes to build & leave behind nano parts as intricate and beautiful as diatoms…but far smaller than lithographic circuits….3D memory at single atom scale?

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angry shock

Jan 12, 2013 at 4:29 am

talking about eyes in the other shark photo… this is great too. Really.

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angry shock

Jan 12, 2013 at 4:30 am

I can’t understand also how this camo thing works, how the guys process the surroundings to know how to look like in order to camouflage! and change along with the change of setting!

Set aside then doing it…

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sbove

Jan 12, 2013 at 4:33 am

Two more wild creatures: Pom Pom Crabs and…the scariest looking caterpillar on earth?

astronomy-to-zoology.tumblr.com/post/38634904532/genus-ly…

scinerds.tumblr.com/post/39938010085/phyllodes-imperialis…

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angry shock

Jan 12, 2013 at 4:57 am

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbove] Super cool!! You know, one day I opened a can of Mackerel (actually it was this Spanish mackerel -smaller- i think) and taking away the insides and the spine, I found a crustacean in the cavity, which I thought to be there because of the animal being caught eating that at the moment… strange anyway. And Now I see this and it’s just like (and the size) of what I saw in that canned fish… is there a change that it might have been? Fish from the pacific.

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angry shock

Jan 12, 2013 at 5:03 am

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbove] A Pom-pom crab is like a sea cheerleader! Awesome!

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Flounder

11 responses to “Flounder”

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