The common skate, Dipturus batis. This, obviously, is the not-up side, referred to by zoologists as "ventral" (the opposite of "dorsal"). Botanists would call it "abaxial". Image by Misjel Decleer, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 license. Click image for link.

Just in case you thought taxonomy was a strictly useless pursuit . . .

. . . and you can see how skates fit into the rest of the cartilaginous fish (fish with cartilage skeletons like sharks) here.

Not going to win any beauty contests . . .Ateleopus purpurea. Photo by Rodolfo B. Reyes and Fishbase, distributed under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Jellynose fish have cartilaginous bones like sharks, though they are in the same group as bony fishes (Teleosts). They seem to have lost their calcified bones secondarily — yet another case of convergent evolution. Cartilage is a living connective tissue that pads your joints. In cartilaginous fishes, the stiff, flexible stuff is all the skeleton they have, with one big exception: the teeth. That’s why most all we have of those giant Megalodon sharks are their rather imposing choppers (in fact, that’s what Megalodon means: mega (huge-***) + odon (tooth)).

As the video says, we know very little about them because they live in the deep sea. Here’s a reasonably good hierachy of the group (see right side of page); here you can see how they fit into the Tree of Life web project (look for Ateleopodomorpha).

What do you think that jelly nose is for, other than grossing out “sensitive viewers”? Anyone?

The blog includes this clip:

If there was ever a fish that belonged on Futurama . . . this is it. The see-through head apparently protects the fish’s eyes from the stinging sea creatures it steals its food from. I knew there was a reason I keep a pair of safety goggles in my kitchen; you never know when the soup will shoot a nematocyst-covered stinging tentacle your way . . . see Better Off Dead.

But then on Monday, DSN posted a new link to — amazingly — a Colbert Report clip about the fish. Just so you know, Colbert’s reaction is pretty much how I feel about all the crazy organisms I’ll be writing about on this blog. To wit:

If this clip won’t load, you can find the DSN version here.

Oh, and just for the record, the fish’s latin name, Macropinna microstoma, roughly translates to “Big wing little mouth”.