A dogfish pack is now available for purchase at the Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery! 🐟
Link to their website in my pinned post.
Local purchase or international shipping available so feel free to get in contact with them if interested!
Catfish Pup - $225cad
Zebra Danio + Yellow Perch - $85 each
Spotted fish + Barred Knifejaw - $55 each
how what???
I’m not good with the science of this or anything (someone who knows more feel free to add) but fish can play??? Fish can play like any other animal?? People saying it couldn’t breathe, do human kids not hold their breaths to go under water for fun? It’s just the opposite. Air is water, water is air. In the same vein as a kid being thrown up and into the pool and enjoying it, the fish is playing.
okay… as someone who studies marine biology I need to clarify something:
fish are unable to hold their breaths. They literally cannot take a deep breath like mammals do.
We have lungs that can take in a specific volume of air, fish have gills that work when they are ventilated enough. There are different kinds of gills, yes. Some fish have something called ‘operculum’ which is like a cap on top of the gills, helping to protect them and increasing the water circulation through the gills. Some fish DONT have this structure and need to swim in order to be able to breathe.
But the fact that they cannot hold their breaths doesnt mean that they cannot survive without water for a while - in fact, fish can (usually) survive being without water WAY LONGER than we could survive being without air.
I cannot tell if this fish does this for fun, but it sure looks like it. But I am not a behavioural biologist, so I can’t tell for sure.
It is abundantly clear the fish is a willing participant. It’s sort of arrogant to assume animals other than humans don’t play like humans.
Im not a behavior biologist either, but I have spent a lot of time around fish and ive spent a lot of time talking to and helping people that care for fish. (Former petstore fish guy that took his job too seriously)
That fish is having fun, and fish absolutely DO have fun!
There was a regular who came into the store I worked at a lot, and he kept several varieties of chichlids, a very smart, aggressive type of fish.
He would come in and talk to me about all the drama his fish get into. The different territorial disputes they were having, who had paired off with who, who broke up (yes chichlids are like this)
But he had a jack dempsey in particular that LOVED to chase his hand around the tank, not his wife’s hand, not his friend’s hand, it HAD to be him. He said that as soon as he entered the room where this fish’s tank was kept, the fish would TEAR UP the tank decor, knocking things over and acting a fool off his shits until this dude stuck his hand in there and let the fish chase it around back and forth.
He theorized that his fish learned that if he knocked the tank decor around, his owner would obviously have to stick his hand in to fix it. So when he wants to play “chase dad’s hand” thats naturally how he knows he can get the hand to appear. He wont do this behavior for anybody but this one guy and he won’t tear up the tank anymore after he had received sufficient “play time”, usually once a day when the guy got home from work. He likened it to having a dog that wont leave you alone till you play tug o war for a bit.
I had a betta that would spend twenty minutes at a time just swimming up to the waterfall of the filter, letting it push him down to the bottom of the tank, only to swim back up and do it again, like it was a fucking slide.
Bettas are weak swimmers, and they dislike strong currents, but this guy was using the filter current like a slide. Kinda like how we don’t really like getting thrown around, but we still enjoy rollercoasters.
I also have countless stories about goldfish trying to “give hugs” (re: shove themselves into their owners hands during tank maintenance)
My betta knows how to lie and he will only beg for food in front of those he knows have not fed him yet.
There is so much evidence I’ve seen that fish are waaaay smarter and affectionate than we think. They absolutely have fun and I honestly don’t think enough studies have been done on fish brains and fish behavior in general.
And honestly, having worked in a pet store, fish are generally treated like they don’t have brains by even the fish care brands that claim expert knowledge.
Its definitely worth noting that hard scientific evidence presenting that the very opposite is true would probably lead to more robust animal welfare laws that would definitely upset the aquatics industry. Food for thought.
I think you’re absolutely right on that last point. The misconception that fish are too thoughtless to have feelings facilitates the abhorrent conditions in which they are kept and ways they are treated by the industry.
I used to have a lovely tank, I think it was 50 gallons, and among other things I kept glass catfish. All the research at the time said they were hard to keep in captivity and prone to refusing to eat and starving themselves, and that they did not live long in captivity. But I was fascinated and had to try it. It took me about three days to realize none of the literature said a word about them being nocturnal. I started feeding them at night right before bed, and had zero problems getting them to eat, saw they were incredibly active as soon as the lights went off (I have exceptional night vision) and I kept them in excellent health for years. Exponentially beyond their captive life expectancy.
I think the commercial pet fish trade is abysmal in terms of actual working knowledge of fish.
Fish Intelligence (a link at which you will also learn there is a fish called the bony-eared assfish) has been studied on a pretty broad scale, actually and there’s a lot of scientific evidence to suggest that they are very smart creatures.
I grew up with a grandma who quilted, but she’d never been interested in passing along the hobby, so when she finally kicked it I was the grandkid who got all her materials, ‘cause I was the only one who knew how to use a sewing machine. Then, in 2015, a friend had a baby and I figured I’d make her a quilt, ‘cause how hard could it be?
oh
my
god
Luckily I am the stubbornest human alive, ‘cause I never woulda finished otherwise. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know the terms to look up how to do anything, I musta reinvented the wheel like eight times and it took ten months, BUT I DID IT.
Figured I’d suffered enough and would never do it again and now I’m on quilt #9 smdh
————————–
I’m hyperventilating.
Holy shit. Holy SHIT.
This is INCREDIBLE.
Oh my god.
I’ve gotta go lay down holy shit look at this how do we just walk by other human beings every day and live our separate lives when there’s a person sitting next to you on the train or in line for coffee who goes home and makes things like this what even IS being human holy shit.
GOOD FUCKING JOB.
Oh heck I did not expect the notes to blow up on this, UM
Okay so on a purely technical level, this is not that difficult, you just gotta come at it a little sideways.
The background of this sucker is just rows of 1.5″-wide fabric strips. I can’t remember the exact pattern, but I wanna say it was something like one row 6″ strips, one row 4.5″ strips, one row alternating? I don’t remember exactly, it was a while ago. That’s not difficult, you just lay it out and sew it all together one row at a time. It’s not hard, just tedious.
The fish are a lil different. I can’t draw, there is a disconnect somewhere and my hands are stupid, so I figured out probably fifteen years ago that tracing was the way to go. For this, I legit just yanked several photos of fancy-looking goldfish off the internet and traced over ‘em in Photoshop.
Once I had enough, I printed my outlines, laid ‘em out on the background to create the idea of movement, and then traced the outlines out on fabric and pinned the hell out of ‘em.
This woulda been WAY easier with Heat ‘N Bond, but I didn’t know that was a thing at the time. From there I just used just about every fancy stitch on my inherited sewing machine to make the fish STAY WHERE I PUT THEM, and also look good.
I have since learned this is called “raw edge applique” but whatever. It’s fun, it’s neat, you can do it with a bunch of stuff and impress the hell outta people. More recently, it’s how I’ve gone from this:
to this:
(this was another project I SUFFERED over unnecessarily, because I’m the dip that decided to quilt the waves, like a moron)
god that sucked but it looked SO COOL when I was done!
I’m very sorry to tell you that if you thought we would be less impressed with you after this update you were very mistaken. I’ll say again:
Holy. Shit.
I have so much respect for people who go to make something for the first time and are like….. “I’m gonna do a super advanced one.”
A school of fish following a duck
just found this guy and ough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! music slaps
Thank you @star-anise for sending this to me. It is so powerful and peaceful
like teaching poetry to fish
“I bring word from the swamp prince, the old pacts shall be honored, muster your forces at first light…”
Once when I was a waitress, which was a terrible job in the place I was living at the time and made me very miserable after a few weeks of sheer joy at having a job at all, this group of 50-somethings came into our restaurant.
They overheard some of the ~conversations being had with me at other tables, and at one point, I stood off to the side behind the partition for the hostess to take a breath and fight back tears.
That table of 50-somethings, who must’ve seen the stress, started tipping me - each time I visited them, and with their dollars folded into complicated origami shapes. A bowtie, a unicorn, a dog. Without fail, one by one, whenever I refilled a drink or fetched another plate of something, I’d be greeted with a joyful origami dollar and happy chit-chat.
Before they left, the lady at the head of the table touched my forearm and said, “You’re doing a great job. Don’t let it get to you,” and left.
Little bright spots like this have seen me through everything.
There is no god in my life. Only the kindness of strangers.
WHAT KIND OF WIZARD FISH IS THIS
This little fish lives deeeeeeeeeep down in the ocean and spits that little glob of bio luminescent liquid to momentarily distract predators and escape being eaten
It’s a wizard
ITS LIKE TOOTHLESS IN HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
"I’m an angel, Dean."
—
Angelfish mermaid!Cas
I’m not entirely happy with this design. I think the skin tone could be different. Or I could add markings to his face. I’m not sure. Also, there were too many different angelfish pictures on google images. I was confused *lol*
So this past weekend I was at a house party and happened to see the single most miserably neglected fish I have ever seen in my life. The water had an opaque layer of something that looked kind of like grease on top and the single fish inside was listless and shrivelled. It smelled FOUL and the guy hosting the party said that they had noticed the fish being kind of stupid since they had changed the water last time (which must have been like a fucking year ago) by just running the tub into the tank.
Being full of whiskey and compassion(?), I naturally decided that the fish was now mine and reached into that disgusting cesspool with a ziplock bag, took the fish home, cackling to myself because what I was doing was just so weird.
The next day I went out and got a tank, like, I dropped 100$ for a stolen goldfish that cost 4.38$ at PetSmart. I went to a locally owned small pet shop called Paws N’ Jaws and the woman there was super helpful and even gave me some free plants with the tank. Ended up being up til like 2 in the morning with school the next day at 8 setting the stupid thing up, panicking about dechlorinating the water etc etc.
These are his new digs, live plants, snaily companions. He’s perked up A LOT since being moved to an environment that actually has oxygen in the water, and has shown marked improvement in his ability to eat. For the first day or so, his motor skills appeared to be completely fucked up and he had a hard time swimming and eating, he would suck up food and then just spit it right back out. Now he’s having a great time, eating well harassing the snails, trying to eat the plants and zipping around the tank for no apparent reason like a moron, but a happy moron. I really enjoy watching him.. or her.
Admittedly I might have done this even if I had been sober, but I like to think this is proof that not ALL decisions made when drunk are bad ones. I regret nothing.
You are a lovely human being. <3
YOU WENT TO A HOUSE PARTY AND STOLE A GOLDFISH OH MY GOD THAT’S THE BEST DRUNKEN STORY I’VE EVER HEARD
this makes me happy
+10 points to Hufflepuff
In July every year we have an event called ” Secret Gardens ” Last year we visited some of the best decorated backyards in the neighborhood and this guy had turned the complete backyard into a pond and gardens. The backyard was about 150 feet wide by 50 feet deep and a pond covered 85% of his lot. This 3 level pond was just beautiful and equipped with a filter hidden behind some bushes. The deep end about 4 feet was at the base of the falls, so I guess he left the fish there for the winter. At least this guy had no lawn to cut !
This is so beautiful. I love the shallows and the deep ends. ahhh what a nice idea. I had something like this in mind for my future pond, but a bit deeper.
This is a parody of Children’s Storybook..
it’s not over yet :) (?) …
하겐님.. Will you marry me?? <3
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 아 완전 사랑해요♥
Fish on Wheels
