“Bro… wtf?” [full video]
I had no idea baby lumpsucker fish are this cute. They’re also just a really cool group of fish. I’m going to let Scientific American’s beautiful phrasing stand for itself about these little guys:
“Available for birthday parties, weddings and corporate functions in the Under the Sea region, the lumpsucker is a chubby, almost-spherical fish with modified pelvic fins that have evolved into adhesive discs on their undersides. So literally lumps with suckers. (…) Other than looking like swollen eyeballs… with eyeballs… lumpsuckers have some pretty strange things going on. For one, they’re pretty awful swimmers, thanks to their round bodies and tiny fins, and when disturbed they tend to flap around aimlessly in different directions. Which is not how escape generally happens. As newly hatched larvae they are surprisingly well developed, equipped with a fully functional mouth and well-developed digestive system. This allows them to begin feeding on tiny crustaceans and fish just 10 days after hatching. Sometimes they’ll resort to eating each other because nature.”