fish

Ahh, meme-ories. Does anyone remember this classic meme, "The Shy Shark?"

It's no secret that a majority of us are terrified of the giant fish, regardless of the classic film "Jaws". I mean, a prehistoric ancient fish lurking in the water, with just it's fin popping up now and then? It's a terrifying image and anyone who says otherwise is flat out lying to you. 

That's why the 'Shy Shark' makes us so happy. With its confused and oddly adorable expression, for a moment, we aren't as afraid as we usually are. 

How lovely is that? Imagine your country bing as clean as Japan to the point where you see fish living and swimming in the street drain canal? 

When it comes to cleanliness, Japan is at a whole other level. The Japanese are known to practice cleanliness regardless of location and we're taught to do so at a young age. Children volunteer monthly to pick up litter from the streets surrounding their schools. Neighborhoods even have street-cleaning events! 

If you're a tourist in Japan, you'll notice you cannot find a single garbage can on the streets. Each person is responsible for their trash and carries a plastic bag to fill with their daily trash which they can dispose of at any department store or subway station.

If only the rest of the world to step up and meet at Japan's level. In the meantime, enjoy these videos and images of koi fish living in Japan's drain canals: 

We knew there were tons of extremely specialized, gross and miserable animals. Y'know, like wasps that lay eggs in living things or fish that swim up pee holes. It looks like this guy just got added to the list. For more animal tumblr stuff, here's a tumblr meltdown after someone says fish aren't animals, and a tumblr thread on farm animals that takes a dark turn.

Vantablack is one of the most light-absorbent materials known, able to absorb up to 99.5% of visible light. This incredible phenomenon was captured expertly by BMW with their promotion of a VantaBlack X6, and has been examined at length by scientists for its potential in camouflage and applications in industrial design. So what if we found this man-made material right underneath our feet? Or more accurately, under the sea.

Karen Osborne and her team discovered that deep in the ocean's depths, there were creatures that had naturally occurring "ultra-black" light absorption. So much so that some of the species discovered with this unique attribute were actually nearly identical in terms of light absorption, to the man-made Vantablack.

Fortunately, even with the challenges of photographing such elusive creatures, the team managed to photograph and study the various species they found to discover there are at least 16 species of fish that can be called ultra-black. So what are these incredible creatures?

Why only cats or dogs? These guilty fish deserve to be shamed too! 

People found themselves petrified with fear and overwhelmed by paleontoligists' recently shared findings about the 100-million-year-old hagfish slime's capabilities. This eerie, eel-like creature sounds like it swam and slithered right out of a feverish nightmare. If you're curious to learn more about why you'd never want to see one of these in the wild, check out the original article that sent everyone into a frenzy, here. 

This tiny fish really made a splash in the Reddit community dedicated to photoshop battles.

Sometimes you see something and with your whole heart and soul you wonder "what the hell is that?" Thanks to the pool of geniuses over at r/whatisthisthing, mysteries like this are posed and solved every day. May the internet make it so that we'll never have to not know anything ever again. Okay, except maybe when you find mysterious items in your dad's toolbox. Maybe it'd be best to not know the truth behind those.

For 55 years, the Natural History Museum in London has run annual competitions for wildlife photography, and the finalists for the 2019 competition have just been announced. These photos of wild animals in their natural habitat are truly breathtaking, as are the skills of the photographers. Out of 50,000 entries, this collection of photographs made it to the finals - and we can see why! 

Animals are cute and funny; we can all agree on this, right? Good. Now we've gotten that out of the way, here are the winning photos for a competition for the funniest animals. I don't know how long the photographers had to wait to capture these moments, but the waiting certainly paid off because these photos are the best thing you'll see all year. 

On Sunday night, the ocean running alongside the East Coast Road in Chennai lit up with sparkling, luminescent water. Eyewitnesses were shocked and delighted to witness something so magical-looking and dubbed it 'sea sparkle'. But what they saw wasn't an undiscovered phenomenon - it's called bioluminescence and it actually occurs in many living organisms. That doesn't make it any less amazing though. Here's what 'sea sparkle' really is. 

Underwater Humor

We've got some seriously bad news for fish-lovers. According to a report from nonprofit Oceana, over 20% of 449 fish that they tested were mislabeled, exposing some pretty serious "fish fraud." This is a staggering percentage, especially when considering that less than 1% of fish is tested for fraud. There's a huge chance that the expensive fish you're ordering while dining out is cheap - or even, according to this related Twitter thread from a biology professor, dangerous. There are fish out there that will hurt you to eat. And, as @AwesomeBioTA's class discovered, some of this "fish" is almost too disgusting for words.

Humans have interrupted a lot of natural processes. Highways divide forests, and dams interrupt the migration routes for fish. But that isn't to say that we haven't found solutions to some of the problems that we created. Wildlife bridges have been built over highways allow animals to cross the highway safely. And in a recent Twitter storm, the public has rediscovered an amazing apparatus that scientists released in 2014 which helps salmon migrate. It is called the Salmon Cannon. And as you can imagine, everyone is obsessed with it.