These pictures below are one of many reasons why I only swim in an ‘artificially maintained area of water’… I was only five years old and in awe of nature’s wonders: constantly looking for bugs, plants or baby animals. I could walk a square metre for hours, up and down with my eyes focused on the ground in search of the tiniest plant or insect. I remember I was wandering around a forest near where my grandmother lived. There where ducklings swimming in the ditch and I was running across the wooden bridge from one side to the other and back, trying to get a good look at the tiny ducks.
At some point, one of the ducklings stayed a bit behind and out of mums sight and care, and I tried to chase it back to the group when a huge pike [Esox lucius] rose from the water with its great big jaws wide open. I had the perfect view on the row of immense teeth that snatched the little duck from the water surface in seconds, to drag it down into the deep empty black darkness of the ditch. I stood there terror-stricken, blaming myself for what just had happened to the little duck. I ran back to my grandmother’s house, screaming and crying my eyes out. I have this picture stuck in my head ever since; The Teeth of Terror…
So I relived that memory when I saw these pictures and made the same vow again as I did years ago, not to ever swim in ponds, rivers or even seas; I’m glad Japan is miles away from here…
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Flaring the gills that give the species its name, a frilled shark swims at Japan’s Awashima Marine Park on Sunday, January 21, 2007. Sightings of living frilled sharks are rare, because the fish generally remain thousands of feet beneath the water’s surface.
Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool.
“We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters,” a park official told the Reuters news service. But the truth may never be known, since the “living fossil” died hours after it was caught.
This serpentine specimen may look like a large eel, but its six slitlike gills help mark it as a cousin of the great white, the hammerhead, and other sharks. But this isn’t your average fish.
Believed to have changed little since prehistoric times, the frilled shark is linked to long-extinct species by its slinky shape and by an upper jaw that is part of its skull. Most living sharks have hinged top jaws.
With a mouthful of three-pointed teeth, the frilled shark may be a fearsome hunter, but it’s considered harmless to humans. Those needle-like choppers are better suited to fleshier forms found in the deep sea, such as squid and other sharks.
© National Geographic
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Tag Archives: Fish
A Night Out
I had my birthday today… Thanks CH. for your text message! Thanks JdB., Dalton, Nicky and IvS for your emails! Thanks Uncle and Aunt, and AS. for your lovely birthday cards. And thanks AS. for organising a surprise party for two, it was wonderful!
We went to a Scottish restaurant; lots of nice fish *yummy!* ‘Loch Fyne’ and it seems to be one of two fish restaurants in London. AS. was lucky booking a table; it was all reserved for at least two weeks. The food was excellent! I had crab cakes with Thai green bean salad, AS. had the best halibut I’ve ever tasted with a caper salsa and lovely steamed veggies… totally yummy!
AS. gave me a really cool A3 printer, colour, so now I can print all my artwork and stuff for my portfolio, totally awesome! I will have to buy A3 paper though but that won’t be a problem I reckon, no clue where to get it from so I will have to do some research online. I will probably buy it online anyway, it’s easier… Well here are a few pics:
My present
The Restaurant [Loch Fyne, Covent Garden]
AS.’s dinner [Halibut and Caper Salsa]
My dinner [Crab Cakes and Thai Green Bean Salad]
AS.’s dessert [Cheese and Oatmeal Biscuits *yummy*]
My dessert [Chocolate Mousse]
After dinner we went to see a play at the Fortune Theatre, Russell Street which is called “The Woman in Black” Which wasn’t as terrifying as they mention below. It was good! Some of the women in the audience were a bit tense since they screamed a lot whenever something was slightly ‘scary’, perhaps I’m just not one of the faint-hearted like they seemed to be. I thought the scary bits where cool and these women slightly annoying… Anyway, I didn’t let it ruin the play, we had a splendid evening.
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The Woman in Black
One of the less well-known West-End fixtures, this adaptation of Susan Hill’s Gothic novel has been packing out houses since 1989 through word of mouth alone.
In Stephen Mallatrat’s stylish adaptation, an elderly lawyer hires a young actor to re-enact the experiences of his youth – the events in Hill’s original novel – in order to exorcise the ghosts of his past.
Suspense is superbly sustained by the two actors, who slip beautifully from past to present. With elegantly controlled tension and a great twist, this is one of the best spine-chillers on the London stage. Genuinely terrifying.
The Fortune Theatre
The first theatre built after World War I is an astonishing piece of architecture. Built in 1922-4, it preceded the arrival of the Art Deco and Modernist style whose smooth curves were to dominate the inter-war period. Instead, it takes its inspiration from the artistic style of Cubism, with an unpredictable, blocky geometry that constantly defies expectations and divides opinions. The quirkiness of the architecture is matched by the Fortune’s most influential show ‘Beyond the Fringe’ (1961), the show that launched the careers of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett, and which has been credited with the invention of modern satire and stand-up comedy.
Calling your theatre the Fortune is asking for trouble – the Elizabethan theatre with the same name burnt down in 1621 – and failure dogged this intimate playhouse from its opening. For much of its existence it has been unable to make money and was reduced to staging amateur productions. Then, in 1989, Stephen Mallatratt’s ‘The Woman in Black’ arrived. This brilliant shocker has been filling the Fortune ever since, based almost entirely on word of mouth.
© londontown
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The Stage
The Audience
The Stage after the break
Covent Garden
After a little stroll we took the bus back to IS. and CS.’s place who just got back from India, we crashed there till 06.30 in the morning. Not a clever thing to do because it takes me three days to recover…