March 27, 2008--Snowbirding: My Inner Fish
If you require further evidence about the truth of Evolution, come to Florida in March when the Spinner Sharks are migrating.
Last Tuesday, waiting for the appearance of inspiration in my writing room from which I have an unimpeded view of the Atlantic, they were on full display. Tracking north, following their food supply—in this case I learned, Spanish Mackerel--vast schools of these ancient predators thrashed in a feeding frenzy that roiled the otherwise flaccid ocean.
It was clear even to an uninformed observer why they have earned their common name, “Spinner” (the Latin, Carcharhinus Brevipinna), as they frequently leapt fully from the ocean and as if thrilled to leave their natural home if only for a moment to spin joyously, glinting in sunlight. While overhead, ignoring them, circled scores of clamoring gulls and pelicans, both of which from great heights slammed headlong into the water to gather their share of whatever the ravenous sharks had left over.
Even before this riotous display I had been thinking about fish and even doing some reading about them. They are everywhere down here. Not just outside my window and not easy to ignore. There is their sport and commercial side. The Old Dixie Seafood Shop, for instance, just down the road is where fish boat captains bring their catch and the proprietors clean and display them in sparkling ice chests. There’s local Snapper and Red Mullet and Mahi Mahi. Swordfish from the Gulf Stream and whatever Tuna remains after the rest is snatched up by the Japanese fish buyers. The owner’s wife turns the occasional Wahoo into grillable steaks and whatever doesn’t get sold she transmutes into an incandescent salad flavored with just the right dash of celery-seed-suffused Old Bay. And then there are their specialties—Key-West style Conch Chowder and Smoked Marlin. They tell us that the Marlin spread is so popular that they sell 80 pounds of it a week. All from a tattered shack of a shop on an out-of-the-way stretch of, yes, the Old Dixie Highway.
But my reading takes me to very different places—to our deeper relationship to the fish. Well beyond all the local surfcasting, sport fishing, and the resulting pleasures of the kitchen and table.
I had known from just a dollop of poorly-taught high school biology, when they still unfettered taught Evolution in public schools, that an even more fantastic transmutation than that which is at work at the Old Dixie Market with the Wahoo is the evidence that humans are no more than evolved fish. Fish that on a day eons past wallowed up onto land and of those that survived in this dramatically new environment slowly passed along to us many of the physical characteristics that we too quickly see to be unique to our own species.
Our boney head and large brain case with our sense organs fastened on are vestiges of our fish origins. And the fact that we have two ears, two nostrils, and two eyes set ideally apart, all essential to our survival, creativity, and progress, are also descended from fish, which also carry their sense organs in pairs.
Our spines that allow us to walk upright are modified versions of fishes’ spiny innards. All it takes to make that point is to observe what a waiter sets quickly aside after he filets your broiled Pompano. It takes little imagination to see the relationship between a fish’s and our skeleton.
Fins became arms and legs; and our hinged jaw, tongue, and enameled teeth are as well gifts from the sea. Also fishes’ cranial nerves are not that far from our own. In fact, premeds who struggle to recognize, identify, and memorize their sequence begin by dissecting the skull or condocrania of Dogfish Sharks. If they do so successfully, as I pathetically attempted, they discover descending first the Olfactory, then the Optic, next the Oculomotor nerve, after that the Trochlear, the Trigeminal . . . and finally the Vegus. All remarkably similar to what one would discover first year in medical school. (Though I dropped out before then and cannot offer true testimony.)
More recent study of our distant cousins reveals that fish have many of the same social skills that make us, it appears, not-so-uniquely human. Most live in schools in large part so that they can be of help to each other, engaging routinely in acts of considerable fish-to-fish reciprocity.
African Cichlids typically live in groups of 10 or more and include a breeding pair and an assortment of helpers. Some defend their territory, others make sure the nests are cleaned, and still others do the hard work of oxygenating the breeding pair’s eggs. And remarkably, hear this human relatives, the so-called helper fish aren’t even biologically related to those they tend. They apparently do this thankless work so that they can benefit from the security against predators and the food supply made available by their collective behavior.
And fascinatingly some fish even experience menopause! To bad for them and why did they need to pass this too along to us? I like my three-dimensional vision, but . . .
Enough reading! I needed to move this research out into the real biological world so it could be tested. And so, during the Spinner Shark migration season, I took to the beach.
To be continued . . .
Last Tuesday, waiting for the appearance of inspiration in my writing room from which I have an unimpeded view of the Atlantic, they were on full display. Tracking north, following their food supply—in this case I learned, Spanish Mackerel--vast schools of these ancient predators thrashed in a feeding frenzy that roiled the otherwise flaccid ocean.
It was clear even to an uninformed observer why they have earned their common name, “Spinner” (the Latin, Carcharhinus Brevipinna), as they frequently leapt fully from the ocean and as if thrilled to leave their natural home if only for a moment to spin joyously, glinting in sunlight. While overhead, ignoring them, circled scores of clamoring gulls and pelicans, both of which from great heights slammed headlong into the water to gather their share of whatever the ravenous sharks had left over.
Even before this riotous display I had been thinking about fish and even doing some reading about them. They are everywhere down here. Not just outside my window and not easy to ignore. There is their sport and commercial side. The Old Dixie Seafood Shop, for instance, just down the road is where fish boat captains bring their catch and the proprietors clean and display them in sparkling ice chests. There’s local Snapper and Red Mullet and Mahi Mahi. Swordfish from the Gulf Stream and whatever Tuna remains after the rest is snatched up by the Japanese fish buyers. The owner’s wife turns the occasional Wahoo into grillable steaks and whatever doesn’t get sold she transmutes into an incandescent salad flavored with just the right dash of celery-seed-suffused Old Bay. And then there are their specialties—Key-West style Conch Chowder and Smoked Marlin. They tell us that the Marlin spread is so popular that they sell 80 pounds of it a week. All from a tattered shack of a shop on an out-of-the-way stretch of, yes, the Old Dixie Highway.
But my reading takes me to very different places—to our deeper relationship to the fish. Well beyond all the local surfcasting, sport fishing, and the resulting pleasures of the kitchen and table.
I had known from just a dollop of poorly-taught high school biology, when they still unfettered taught Evolution in public schools, that an even more fantastic transmutation than that which is at work at the Old Dixie Market with the Wahoo is the evidence that humans are no more than evolved fish. Fish that on a day eons past wallowed up onto land and of those that survived in this dramatically new environment slowly passed along to us many of the physical characteristics that we too quickly see to be unique to our own species.
Our boney head and large brain case with our sense organs fastened on are vestiges of our fish origins. And the fact that we have two ears, two nostrils, and two eyes set ideally apart, all essential to our survival, creativity, and progress, are also descended from fish, which also carry their sense organs in pairs.
Our spines that allow us to walk upright are modified versions of fishes’ spiny innards. All it takes to make that point is to observe what a waiter sets quickly aside after he filets your broiled Pompano. It takes little imagination to see the relationship between a fish’s and our skeleton.
Fins became arms and legs; and our hinged jaw, tongue, and enameled teeth are as well gifts from the sea. Also fishes’ cranial nerves are not that far from our own. In fact, premeds who struggle to recognize, identify, and memorize their sequence begin by dissecting the skull or condocrania of Dogfish Sharks. If they do so successfully, as I pathetically attempted, they discover descending first the Olfactory, then the Optic, next the Oculomotor nerve, after that the Trochlear, the Trigeminal . . . and finally the Vegus. All remarkably similar to what one would discover first year in medical school. (Though I dropped out before then and cannot offer true testimony.)
More recent study of our distant cousins reveals that fish have many of the same social skills that make us, it appears, not-so-uniquely human. Most live in schools in large part so that they can be of help to each other, engaging routinely in acts of considerable fish-to-fish reciprocity.
African Cichlids typically live in groups of 10 or more and include a breeding pair and an assortment of helpers. Some defend their territory, others make sure the nests are cleaned, and still others do the hard work of oxygenating the breeding pair’s eggs. And remarkably, hear this human relatives, the so-called helper fish aren’t even biologically related to those they tend. They apparently do this thankless work so that they can benefit from the security against predators and the food supply made available by their collective behavior.
And fascinatingly some fish even experience menopause! To bad for them and why did they need to pass this too along to us? I like my three-dimensional vision, but . . .
Enough reading! I needed to move this research out into the real biological world so it could be tested. And so, during the Spinner Shark migration season, I took to the beach.
To be continued . . .
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:23 AM
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