Miscellaneous Talk That Doesn't Deserve A New Thread Thread

Most of their relatives(south american knifefish(not to be confused with Old World knifefish) actually use electricity to talk with each other.  They're nearly blind, since they live in murky, dark rivers; and to top that, they're nocturnal.  This allows knifefish, to use it's powers of electricity to both see and communicate.  The Electric eel has essential became super sayain and can now use it's powers to kill.

How ironic how both spore and thrives aquatic areas would have a possible underwater civ but was decided against : P

Here's the whole thing:

It had so much potential.

That`s how we all felt, it looked so exciting and then EA happened.

This is how I found Thrive.  It was either a friend or Reddit that I was complaining about Spore and they should make a new one, and their reply was probably something like "Yeah, I think there's some people trying to do that.  It's called Thrive"  But I'm pretty sure it was Reddit since the Reddit boom was happening while I was obsessed with the site.

This is a good way to imagine and think about how First Contacts will work out in thrive aswell, that would be interesting and amazing to imagine.

So, I was going through a scientific research site about mudskippers, and I learned that there was a brand new mudskipper species described this year, I'm guessing this month too!


www.mudskipper.it/SpeciesPages/pusi.html

Oh jeez, this might take a while.  I'll edit this post with the explanation so you know I'm putting forth the effort.

Here we go:
Mudskippers are a subfamily of small, shallow water, benthic(bottom dweller) fish known as gobies.  Gobies are easily identified from other similar kinds of fish by their cupped-pelvic fins.  Their pelvic fins are normally used to cling on to the bottom so currents won't carry them away.  Other kinds of gobies are known to use them to climb vertical waterfalls in pacific islands.  Mudskippers us them to cling on to trees.  Another notable feature of gobies is their lack of an air bladder.  Most fish have them to maintain a neutral buoyancy, which isn't a concern for gobies.  If a goby did have an air bladder, they wouldn't be benthic.  This is however a problem for mudskippers, because most fish that breathe air: Tarpon, Catfish, Lungfish, Gar, Bowfin, Bettas, Gouramis, ect. all use their air bladders as a primitive lung.  So mudskippers have two different modes of respiration.  First off, they breathe through their skin(like amphibians!), but however, it's not good enough to allow them to exchange gases.  However, they've adapted to use their gills as little SCUBA tanks.  What makes a fish unable to breathe air is their gill rays.  These are blood fill filaments that are so fine that they can be able to stand stiff underwater that allows fish to breath in water, but the flimsiness means it won't work in air.  And vice versa with our bronchials in our lungs.  Mudskipper gills have adapted to work like our bronchials rather than the gill rays being thicker which means they literally will drown underwater.  This method of respiration is one of the least efficient known and more aquatic amphibious mudskippers are less active than ones in the genus Periophthalmus.

Mudskippers have no neck.  This was an evolutionary advantage to our early ancestors like Tiktaalik.  Mudskippers found a solution, by placing the eyes on top of your head and letting them basically bug out as they do gives them nearly 360 degree vision.  But fish eyes need to stay moist, so in their eye sockets contain fluids that replenish moisture, in other words, mudskippers blink(Most reptiles can't blink!).  And mudskipper eyes are developed to see on land, so just like us, their vision is blurry underwater.

Mudskippers have no vocal chords, but they produce a sound that isn't audible to us using a group of muscles scientists haven't been able to pinpoint.  Many other fish communicate the same way, and a lot were named after their noticeable noisiness: Grunts, Croakers, Drums, Talking Catfish.  They also communicate to each other by signals using their colorful dorsal fins.  Mudskippers also have no functioning tongue, so they'll use water to push food down their throat as if it were a tongue!

Mudskippers are also not even closely related to fish like Tiktaalik!  As I said, mudskippers are a type of goby, which are part of the group percomorphs, which are classified as advanced fish with major adaptations to live in the water.  Mudskippers are a pretty recent fish that might've come to see the world around 50-10 million years ago.  Though many athiests like to relate the mudskipper to evolution, the funny thing is, there have been NO FOSSILS of mudskippers that can give us any real information about their evolution, only speculations.

Mudskippers are burrowers, they make J-shaped burrows 1-3 feet in the mud.  Their eggs are laid in there and are carried out in the surf when the tide rolls in.  Mudskippers are widespread for their ability to live as a larval in open water.

Mudskippers use a mode of transportation that is pretty much unique to mudskippers, known as crutching.  This means the use their fins and basically row them in movements that resemble a person walking with their crutches.  Mudskippers are not lobe-finned fish like Ceolocanths or Lungfish, but mudskippers have evolved an "elbow"with an extension of the basalia bone.


I can go even further than this, if you'd like.  My fingers need a break though.