vampireapologist:

bettsplendens:

vampireapologist:

boguscantaloupe:

vampireapologist:

ever since i was little i have been terrified of paddlefish. i saw a couple’a paddlefish swimmin around at the shedd aquarium in chicago and i knew they just weren’t for me. no wildlife had or has ever really scared me except for them. in my fear i still had curiosity so i read about them and the little sign said they live in the ohio river, which was bad news for me.

for years every time we drove over the river and i was terrified the bridge would collapse and we’d plummet into the murky depths and we’d all survive miraculously only so a paddlefish could swim through our shattered window.

when i got to college to study wildlife i found out that paddlefish are endangered in ohio and required our protection. I thought …..how Inconvenient.

Now I will dedicate my life and passion to them.

but they better not EVER look at me.

This? This is what you’re afraid of? These fish with handles?

I am who I am and I don’t owe anyone any explanation

those fish with handles get Big! person-sized or so. they swim around with their mouths open like idiots and eat whatever small things go down their throat. 

I’m not being sarcastic. I wish you’d been my ichthyology professor.

The highest compliment! 

It used to be thought that paddlefish used their paddles to dig around in the mud and unearth food. This is what platypi do, but paddlefish are not platypi. Their handles are lined with sensors that are presumably used to detect things like water movement, scent, and alien communication signals. This may help steer them towards higher concentrations of food. No word on whether they eat the aliens or if the aliens feed them something.

Since paddlefish eat by swimming around and waiting for food to go in their mouths, you can’t catch them on a regular rod and line setup unless one blunders its mouth into your hook. Instead, people catch them by snagging them with hooks attached to thick line and hauling them in. Which sounds a lot like how some sort of horror movie monster would catch people. This is only legal in some areas and probably should be legal in none of them.