Ari Daniel
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Maybe there's better food up there or less predation, but it's still an open question.
Okay, this one takes us to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to a fish that the staff there believe has never been reared before in captivity.
The aquarium has a small tank with two warty frogfish.
It'd be a great costume, actually, now that you mention it.
Each one's about the size of a tennis ball.
They're bumpy and yellow with splashes of red, says senior aquarist Jenny Richards.
They are cute, but cutthroat.
Part of its dorsal fin is a lure that looks like a little shrimp, which it uses to attract its prey.
Last fall, the female in the tank began to look kind of bloated, and then she released a raft of tens of thousands of eggs, which the male then fertilized.
Absolutely.
But each species has its own specific needs.
Within a few days, though, thousands of tiny larvae had hatched out.
The aquarists focused their efforts on 500 of them.
They fed them tiny crustaceans.
And gradually, the larvae underwent a series of dramatic changes, Regina.
Their vertebrae and fins shifted position, their muscles changed, and with each transition, the ranks thinned.
And I would say tender work taking care of them like this.
And ultimately, around day 90, just one larva transitioned into a juvenile.
Yeah, just one.
Wow.