Fantastic Flight of Flying Fish Filmed
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 26th, 2008
With all the talk of how difficult it is to film cryptids, occasionally it is good to point out that several species of animals do not exactly allow themselves to be filmed/photographed easily. This week flying fish are all the rage in a new video posted on the Internet.
A Japanese TV crew has filmed what is believed to be the longest flight of a flying fish ever recorded. The NHK television network said one of its camera crews captured the 45-second flight on video from a ferry near Kuchino-erabu island in southwestern Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture, on May 19, 2008. The crew was reportedly on its way to shoot footage for a nature documentary.
Meanwhile, in Illinois, another type of “flying fish” is causing problems because it is an alien species:
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Amazing footage, especially the fish gliding for 45 secs. I wonder what evolutionary advantage there is for a fish being able to fly for that length of time. Is it to escape predators, or are they gobbling up insects as they are flying? Anyone got any other suggestions?
Flying fish are one of those things that don’t work into any conventional theories of evolution. Especially seeing how they usually do their flying for no apparent reason.
“scares the CARP outta them” That was funny 😉
They need to introduce snakeheads to take care of that carp problem.
Flying fish seem to seek out the invisible wave of air pushed aside by the bow of the ship as it passes thru the water, usually flying along parallel to the ship’s side and direction, much as dolphins ride just ahead of the ship’s curling bow wave.
They were at least 100 feet away from the side of the giant Carrier I served on, and seemed to fly (or glide) higher out of the water than those accompanying the smaller cruise ship on which I toured the Carribean years later.
Fish emerging from the water further away from the ship seemed to dash off in random directions, and made much shorter flights.
The video clip seems to show the fish swooping away from the ship, then finding the wave and gliding along at that distance.
Flying fish make perfect evolutionary sense, and the perception that they do it for no reason is equally misleading. Fish often jump out of the water to avoid predators. Us surface dwellers don’t often see the bigger fish pursuing them, just the ones who jump into our world. Those with an ability to glide farther can land further away, thus better eluding said predators. Simple natural selection takes care of the rest- those who glide farther live longer, have more kids, and those kids who glide farther than others live longer and have more kids with similar traits. Give it a little time and voila!- The figurative flying fish. Nothing mysterious about it.
Although I haven’t been able to view the videos above just yet, I believe these marine flying fish don’t fly – they glide.
There is a south American characin – the hatchet fish (popular in the aquarium industry) which is the only true flying fish. That is, it beats its pectoral fins to gain height and momentum.
The reason it’s called the hatchet fish is because its keel is shaped like a hatchet. Why? To support all the muscles which attach there for the purpose of flapping those fins. It’s basically the same shape as the keel of a flying bird, but without the bulk of the body and feathers to hide it.
Chris.
PS.. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong and see the marine species flapping away in the video above when I can view it tonight! 🙂
I’ve never seen a flying fish fly, apart from cartoons. That’s actually pretty neat!
Too bad it’s a Youtube video, so the compression is utter “carp,” as the case may be >.>
Amdusias in some areas of the US snakeheads have been illegally introduced and are killing off native species, and in many instances where a species is introduced in attempts to control the population of another species it does not work out as planned. However there are rarely easy answers to how to deal with a non-native species.
As to the first videos those fish can cover some distance!