#Slender Snipe Eel

[pillarsalt]

[dougdimmadodo]

Slender Snipe Eel (Nemichthys scolopaceus)

Family: Snipe Eel Family (Nemichthyidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Unassessed

Named for its elongated jaws that resemble the beak of a snipe, the Slender Snipe Eel is an illusive and poorly understood fish, with most of what is known about it coming from a handful of brief encounters with live individuals (although the remains of this species are frequently found in the stomachs of larger fish caught by fishers.) Found in non-polar waters worldwide, it inhabits the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zone (at depths of 200-4,000m/656-13123ft) and feeds on swimming crustaceans which it catches using a series of tiny teeth that line its long, curved jaws. Although adults of this species may grow to be up to 1.3 meters (4ft) long, their extremely slender body means that they weigh less than 100 grams (3.5 ounces), with their thin, lightweight bodies possibly being an adaptation that makes them harder for prey and predators such as tunas (some species of which may dive to great depths to hunt snipe eels) to detect in the darkness of their deepwater home. Slender Snipe Eels are believed to reproduce through broadcast spawning (meaning they release gametes freely into the water without finding a mate, with the gametes meeting in the water) and die after mating; their larvae, bizarrely, begin their lives with broad, leaf-shaped bodies and “slim down” as they age. The spine of a Slender Snipe Eel contains as many as 750 vertebrae, which vastly surpasses the number seen in any other vertebrate (for reference, humans have just 33 and even Blue Whales, the longest vertebrates, have at most 65.)

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Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/67619-Nemichthys-scolopaceus

[999moreyears]

what da sneef? im snorfin here!!!!!!

(slender snipe eel)

that thang is a needle ... if use this animal to sew

[thedancingwalrus-blog]

@phynali Good morning treasured mutual. I have decided you need to know about the snipe eel's existance

Behold!

Slender snipe eels which according to wiki have more vertebra than any other animal. Around 750.

[jaxx-a-phone]

Introducing: Double Mermay!!

A challenge where you use the regular Mermay prompts, as well as a randomly selected fish to base the drawing/character off of! You can use any list of fish you want, but here’s the one I’m using! (Deep sea fish)

Slender Snipe Eel

Viperfish

Gulper Eel

Barreleye

Ribbon Sawtail Fish

Sarcastic Fringehead

Marine Hatchetfish

Atlantic Hagfish

Frilled Shark

Chimaera

Fangtooth

Hadal Snailfish

Mueller Fish

Lophiomus

Coelacanth

Stargazer Fish

Goblin Shark

Zombie Worms

Predatory Tunicate/Ghostfish

Vampire Squid

Tripod Fish

Dumbo Octopus

Boa Dragonfish

Snailfish

Highfin Lizard Fish

Blind Eel

Parasitic Louse

Roughhead Grenadier

Solumbellula Sea Pen

Sea Pig

Siphonophore

Ghost Shark

Cookiecutter Shark

Bobbit Worm

Yeti Crab

Pompeii Worm

Red-Lipped Batfish

Hairy Anglerfish

Pink Sea-Through Fantasia

Christmas Tree Worm

Basket Star

Whale Shark

Phronima Sedentaria

Promachoteuthis Sulcus

Terrible Claw Lobster

Pacific Blackdragon

Mantis Shrimp

Also all of the regular Mermay prompts!

[magnoliasandbeardedtooth]

Crested caracara

Deepstaria jellyfish

Oropendola

Hammerhead salamander

Armored bush cricket

Curetis acuta caterpillar

Fish scale gecko. what the hell is this lil guy doing

Everyone knows what a king cobra is but did you know that they GROWL????? WHAT?????

Pika bunny

Big headed turtle

Mexican mole lizard

Nicobar pigeon

Black-napped pheasant pigeon

Batfish

Slender snipe eel

Barbados threadsnake

Lacewing larvae, who collect and cover themselves with aphid molt exoskeletons, possibly to camouflage themselves while hunting aphids

Chlamisus or Fulcidax leaf beetles

Everyone knows what a barracuda is. but Ive never seen any educational coverage of it. I dont know a thing about barracudas besides their diet of cute animated clown fish families. I just saw a video of a small shark chillin in the shallows, and out of NOWHERE it gets blasted by a barracuda that was AT LEAST 6 feet long (sharkie was fine) WHO was gonna tell me that barracudas are THAT FUCKING BIG??? huh???? I was just supposed to FIND THAT OUT????

Cup moths and their jelly bean caterpillars

Greater prairie chicken

Luzon bushy-tailed cloud rat

Apparently Baquila trifoliolata is NOT the only plant with light sensitive cells, there is also Arabidopsis mustard and however the hell you spell the last one

Ghost cicada

Thomisus onustus

Scorpion fly

Plume moths

Golden tortoise beetle

Thorny crickets

Arsenure drucei moth catterpillar

Happy faced spider

Long horned orbweaver

Devils flower mantis

Cassius owlet catterpillar

Orchid bee

Any moon moth that's not the north american version

Equatorial velvet worm

animals that are extremely cool but I only found out about by chance because every single animal program and article focuses on famous animals like tigers and polar bears and eye-eyes:

Civet

Aardwolf

Cloud rat

Binturong

Painted dogs

Takin

Oarfish

Dik-dik

Mouse deer

I checked and dik-diks and the mouse deer are different

Honestly any deer that isn’t white tail, red, reindeer, elk, or moose

Like that striped deer, the lowland nyala???? especially the females???? fantastic

that fanged deer?????? HELL yeah

King vulture

Numbat

Bearded vulture

Bush dog

feel free to add, I will when I stumble on super cool unknown animals

[mbari-blog]

It’s officially Monday, and we’re officially not moving. ⁠

This unique deep-sea resident is Avocettina bowersii, also known as a snipe eel. These slender eels are observed at depths ranging from 90 to 2,700 meters (295 to 8,860 feet) below the ocean’s surface.⁠⁠

Snipe eels in the family Nemichthyidae have thin, tweezer-like jaws that bend outwards. It was long debated how these fish actually eat, but we now know that they have tiny, backward-facing teeth that work almost like velcro. They use them to capture small crustaceans and bring prey into their mouths with a series of rapid chomps.⁠

[cheetahtrout]

in case you where wondering what this weird fishenthusiast has been doing:

1 Coelacanth 2 Lungfish 3 Tetrapod 4 Ropefish 5 Bichir 6 Sturgeon 7 Paddlefish 8 Bowfish 9 Gar (messed up Maxillary needs correction) 10 Ladyfish 11 Tarpon 12 Japanese gissu 13 bonefish 14 deep sea spiny eel 15 Halosaur 16 Protanguilla 17 cutthroat eel 18 Mud eel 19 thin eel 20 moray eel 21 false moray (u r a FRAUD!) 22 longneck eel 23 snake eel 24 pike conger 25 duckbill eel 26 conger 27 garden eel 28 Bathymyrinae 29 spaghetti eel 30 pelican eel 31 Saccopharynx 32 onejaw gulpers 33 bobtail snipe-eel 34 freshwater eel 35 snipe eel 36 sawtooth eel 37 Mooneye 38 freshwater butterflyfish 39 arowana 40 knifefish 41 aba 42 freshwater elephantfish 43 anchovi 44 denticle herring 45 Pellona 46 Pristigaster 47 wolf herring 48 round herring 49 herring 50 sardine 51 sprat 52 menhaden 53 sprat 54 Slickhead 55 milkfish 56 beaked salmon 57 shellear 58 hingemouth 59 bitterling 60 bleak 61 barbel 62 redfin 63 snowtrout 64 Golden-Line fish 65 sharpbelly 66 white amur bream 67 tinfoil barb 68 khramulyas 69 crucian carp 69A ryukin goldfish 70 common carp 71 carplet 72 rasbora 73 danio 74 flying barb 75 silver cyprinid 76 razorbelly minnow 77 false gudgeons 78 gudgeon 79 steed 80 mud carp 81 labeo 82 yellowfish 83 Leptobarbus 84 common bream 85 bleak 86 chiselmouth 87 longfin dace 88 mexican chub 89 spanish minnowcarp 90 aztec chub 91 bream 92 silver bream 93 stoneroller 94 nase 95 dace 96 redside dace 97 ornate shiner 98 lake chub 99 satinfin shiner 100 desert minnow 101 desert dace 102 longjaw minnow 103 slender chub 104 cutlips minnow 105 western chub 106 flame chub 107 california (roll ) roach 108 silvery minnow 109 bigeye chub 110 least chub 111 hitch 112 spinedace 113 moderlieschen 114 eurasian dace 115 highscale shiner 116 finescale shiner 117 blacktail chub 118 pearl dace 119 spikedace 120 moapa dace 121 peamouth 122 hardhead 123 hornhead chub 124 golden shiner 125 eastern shiner 126 pugnose minnow 127 oregon chub And I am NOWHERE NEAR finished!

[dansnaturepictures]

16/04/22-Part 2 of 2: Lodmoor

Following on my my previous post, we then called into nearby Lodmoor where there were many more avian delights on a walk in gorgeous sunshine. The bright colours of Mediterranean Gull another special bird to hear and see today, bronzed Black-tailed Godwits and more lovely Shelducks were great to see on a walk round as were some stunning Snipes. Greenfinch looked dashing at the end and there were some more great close views of Gadwall like the one in the third picture I took today in this photoset. Near to a residential area I very much enjoyed seeing House Sparrows taking blossom either eating the blossom or taking it for nesting I believe in the golden sunlight something so interesting to see. I took some photos of this including the fourth picture in this photoset.

Peacocks were a regular sight at Lodmoor too, and we saw a Speckled Wood well. Cow parsley, lesser celandine, lots of lovely daisies, dandelions, shadows of sedum, green alkanet, periwinkles, hyacinth and buttercup were lovely flowers to see here too. There was some amazing blossom to see of great colours on this walk with gorse and reedbeds mixing so well in hazier sunny scenes lending itself well to the extensive views from here. I took the first two and fifth pictures in this photoset of views here today and sixth of some stunning blossom. On the way home I noticed the famous sign post to this place the white horse was surrounded nicely by gorse and I reflected on what an amazing year I have had for seeing gorse so far especially these past few weeks.

As we chatted to a lovely couple at the hut area who had just admired like us a Wren showing and singing well on this gorgeous day I took the seventh picture in this photoset of that, we ended the day amazingly with another year tick and another astonishing natural moment. The tick was a slender Common Tern drifting through the air, a migrant that was another key target lately that later in the year at Lodmoor we would be fairly sure to see but I didn’t know if we’d sneak a sighting in today or not early on with them just arriving on these shores again but we did and I am over the moon with this. It feels so good to get my year of terns begun a key bird of this time of year. This takes my bird year list to 149.

Then a Grey Heron that we had been getting cracking views of edged closer before catching an eel with its bill, and it proceeded to devour it further back on some grass. The eel put up a pretty good fight though it’s such a slippery fish. The Grey Heron managed to swallow it, and then went in for a second coming to the same area of water and as we left it was looking to eat the second having taken it to a similar area in the grass. Such a simple piece of behaviour, but one we maybe rarely get the chance to stand and watch. And what an intimate glimpse into the world of this characteristic bird this gives us. I took the eighth picture in this photoset of the Grey Heron and ninth of it with the eel on the ground whilst it was trying to eat it. A perfect end to our time in Weymouth today.

Birches and gorse looked lovely in the sunlight coming through the New Forest on the way home tonight. At home as hoped I saw and photographed a cracking sunset and saw the brilliant pink moon a full moon I had looked forward taking photos of that too including the tenth and final in this photoset. Today was what bank holidays are all about for me, relaxing and enjoying some brilliant time out well in a cracking wild further afield trip. And Dorset trips are often a key part of our Easter and bank holiday weekends in general. And it was what Easter is all about for me today as it was the personification of spring. What a day! Wildlife Sightings Summary for Lodmoor: My first Common Tern of the year, two of my favourite birds the Little Egret and Shelduck, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon, Greenfinch, Blue Tit looking nice in a green tree, Long-tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Dunnock, Wren, House Sparrow, Grey Heron, Snipe, Oystercatcher, Black-tailed Godwits, Cormorant, Herring Gull, Black-headed Gull, Mediterranean Gull, Canada Goose, Coot, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Mallard, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Teal closely, Speckled Wood, Peacock, Brown Rat, eel and we heard Cetti’s Warbler.

Part 1 of today’s posts is here: https://dansnaturepictures.tumblr.com/post/681728232861630464/160422-part-1-of-2-radipole-lake-and-some-bits

[nemfrog]

Slender snipe eel. Zoologica. 1937. 

Internet Archive

[captain-pattycakes]

@oldbirdbrain replied to your post ““Didja know the Slender Snipe Eels butthole is on its throat, nano...”

"I think ol' Raven could'a gone his whoooole life without know'n that, honey. Would'a preferred it that way too!"

“The didja know Vampire squids turn themselves inside out in a way~ Or that the start sunfish can grow up ta twenty arms and detach ‘em at will?” 

[a-book-of-creatures]

Runners-up:

Acorn weevil (Curculio glandium) (see above)

Slender snipe eel (Nemichthys scolopaeus)

Mosquito (Aedes aegypti)

Bluespotted cornetfish (Fistularia commersonii)

Elephant shrew (Elephantulus myurus)

African Elephant (Loxodonta africana)

Super special fictional creature mention: nasobeme/snouter (Nasobema lyricum)

top 10 snout animals

10. Avocet

9. Borzoi

8. Bilby

7. Gharial

6. Armadillo

5. Needlefish

4. Garden Eel (this counts ok@?)

3. Toucan

2. Long-Snout Clingfish

1. Anteater

[hecate1725]

The slender snipe eel

YUCK

fun facts:

“The slender snipe eel is a deep sea, bathypelagic species occuring from the surface down to many hundred meters in depth!!!!!!”

“The snipe eel, known to science as Nemichthys scolopaceus, is a rather peculiar looking fish. It has a long body, up to five feet in length, and resembles a long piece of ribbon or string with a large bulbous head at one end”

Facts:

Scientific name:

Nemichthys scolopaceus 

Taxonomic Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Anguilliformes

Family: Nemichthyidae

Genus: Nemichthys

Species: N. scolopaceus

Growth and development:

The snipe eel, known to science as Nemichthys scolopaceus, is a rather peculiar looking fish. It has a long body, up to five feet in length, and resembles a long piece of ribbon or string with a large bulbous head at one end.

Common name:

slender snipe eel

Nutritional requirement:

The only food items actually found in the stomachs of snipe eels have been shrimp-like crustaceans, though ichthyologists believe they should be capable of catching and eating small fish and cephalopods also

Behavior:

The slender snipe eel is an active predator that feeds on pelagic crustaceans in the dark of the deep ocean. ... The conservation status of the slender snipe eel is not known, but it is likely naturally rare. It is not targeted for human use and is rarely captured in fisheries targeting other species.

Habitat:

The bobtail snipe eels are two species of deep-sea fishes in the family Cyematidae, one only in each of two genera. They are small elongate fishes, growing up to 16 centimeters (6.3 inches) long. They are bathypelagic (deep-water ocean-dwellers) and have been found down to 5,000 meters (16,000 feet)

Reproduction:

Larger fishes, including some shallow water species that dive to feed (e.g., some tunas), eat slender snipe eels. This species reproduces via broadcast spawning, a process by which females release their eggs and males release their sperm into the water column at the same time.

Evolutionary Origins:

The conservation status of the slender snipe eel is not known, but it is likely naturally rare.  It is not targeted for human use and is rarely captured in fisheries targeting other species.  However, as commercial fishers fish deeper and deeper, targeting new species of fishes and invertebrates, it is possible that the slender snipe eel could be more regularly affected by these activities.  Therefore, it is important to continue to study this and similar species, in order to determine population trends and learn more about the life history of species in the deep sea

site sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_snipe_eel

http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/snipe-eel.html

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1366&bih=588&ei=yfAqWpu3F6rVjwT9vpmgDA&q=snipe+eels+reproduction&oq=snipe+eels+reproduction&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1.180923.184646.0.185195.12.12.0.0.0.0.307.1369.2j8j0j1.11.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.11.1364...33i21k1.0.EqyHx1499Q0

http://oceana.org/marine-life/ocean-fishes/slender-snipe-eel

https://www.google.com/search?q=snipe+eels+origins&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihm6i7nPvXAhUB2oMKHd6vC1gQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=588#imgrc=-lIjmas5Lwtc-M:

[madmilotic]

HELLO I am coming out of nowhere because I saw your addition to the post about the Mola Mola and I have never seen them swim so fast before and I am frankly amazed. I love the sunfish because they are amazing and weird like so many other things in the ocean. They are ridiculous looking but I say that in the most loving odd ways. What are some of your favorite strange fish? I'd love to hear if you'd like to share.

Oh my gosh >//

The first is a fairly common group of fishes but it’s one of my top favorites (if not my TOP favorite) Triggerfishes! (Family Balistidae). These are the relatives of Mola mola I mentioned that also use balistiforme locomotion but I love them because they so curious and sassy! As aquarium pets, they need lots of space because they love to explore and pick apart their tanks hunting for food or just cause they can. You can sit and watch them and just...SEE that they are thinking, trying to analyze what they are looking at. Plus they are all just so gaudy and gorgeous but most things don’t eat them cause of their armored skin and some being poisonous. They also have three bony spins on their dorsal fin that can lock in place, which is the reason for their name. They are the fab sass masters of the sea (I lost my shit when the pokemon Bruxish was released)! I had a personal experience with a queen trigger (shown below) that followed me the whole time I snorkeled on a reef one day until I followed it. If I stopped, it would stop and watch me until I followed it again. It led me all over the reef. Why I can’t say, maybe it was just curious, or leading me away from something. I don’t really know but I never forgot that experience. I should hazard messing with triggerfish, they can deliver a nasty bite if you arn’t careful!

Really, just look up the order Tetraodontiformes - all the fish in this group are weird in their own right. 

source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10228-014-0444-5

Okay so lets move to something weirder and a bit deeper - the Snipe Eels (Family Nemichthyidae)! These things are just wild. They have extremely long, thin bodies. Although they can reach lengths of 6 ft, most don’t weigh more than a pound. They are pelagic (live in the water column rather than on the seafloor) hunters that sit and wait for prey to swim into their crazy bird beak mouths (we think). They can’t even fully close their mouths at the tips because they curve upwards. We really know very little about these guys, but they look like they stared into the sun and it stared back. They are found in oceans around the world. Picture below. There arn’t many sources for these guys, I’d recommend the book “Fishes of the World 5th Edition” by Joseph S. Nelson for more information on them. 

Source: (The book I mentioned above) https://www.amazon.com/Fishes-World-Joseph-S-Nelson/dp/111834233X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497742081&sr=8-1&keywords=fishes+of+the+world

Okay, so lets go a big deeper once more. How about the Barreleye fishes (Family Opisthoproctidae)? These are deep sea specialists you may have seen on the series Blue Planet. Like their name suggests, they have enormous eyes set in mobile barrels that can shift to look directly above them or forward when they swim. The hang in the water column looking up into the galaxy to foresee the inevitable heat death of the uni- I mean to see potential prey items by catching any light that filters down in those big, haunting eyes. They will then ambush prey from below. A particular barreleye species has taken its eyes to the extreme and has them protected in a clear helmet (picture below). They are often bio-luminescent and have a range of body forms -  from brick shaped to long and slender. Another group we don’t know much about. Their eyes are also unique in that they use mirror optics rather than refraction optics. You can read about it in the sources below! Again I can’t recommend Fishes of the World enough for general information on all these fishes. 

sources: https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/74587/BPTX_2015_1_11310_0_412443_0_175608.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1782/20133223.short

Alrighty, there are who knows how many deep sea fishes I could talk about, but I havn���t mentioned any freshwater fishes, so lets end this long post with a cool guy from freshwater cause FW fishes never get enough love after all! 

How about Anableps anableps, the four-eyed fish (Family Anablepidae)? These freshwater fishes from Central and South America literally have four eyes! Two for seeing above water, and two for below. With this, they can watch for both predators and prey, feeding at the top of the water on things like insects. This also makes them unbelievably hard for an ichthyologist to catch when they literally sea your nets and jump right out...

source: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0101727

I hope this was fun, there are TONS of other fishes I could discuss, especially in freshwater! Also - none of these images are mine, they’re all from google so if they need to be removed lemme know! If anyone has any questions or needs sources, lemme know and I can send the pdf! There are lots of sources for these guys, but again, I emphasize Fishes of the World, its a great book that is a good starting reference for any group of fishes.

[boudhabar]

Slender Snipe Eel, Conger Eel, Moray, etc. Vintage 1984

[eelmachine]

want 2 be a conger eel but i am just a slender snipe :(