Amazonia

[opabinia]

I've reached the Point of No Return with the Amazon Project. Moved the inhabitants to temporary housing, drained the tank, changed the substrate.

Yesterday I learned why banjo cats (Bunocephalus coracoideus) flex into a horseshoe shape when you pick them up. Those barbed pectoral spines are incredibly sharp. A particularly educational specimen drew blood from me twice: First, she wrapped around my right ring finger. Then, when I unstuck her with my free hand, hailing her with a storm of curses, she punctured the left ring finger. Same spot, mirror images.

Amazing. I mean, I've been handling these things for years -- this one just happened to get the angle right.

Anyone want some banjo cats? Handle them with a net.

Comments

[armandae.livejournal.com]

some of us stab ourselves with pins and needles...
you get stabbed by fish.

each to their hobbies ;p
by which i mean no. I have enough prickly things (me, my roommate, my floor littered with pins) in my house.

ha. the side of hobbies they don't warn you about.

This Friday on SciFi...

[pat-man-ta.livejournal.com]

Banjo Catfish... of DOOM!

Re: This Friday on SciFi...

[fire-faery.livejournal.com]

I was just about to say that.

[brigid.livejournal.com]

are you getting rid of them? are they big?
i need new fish, i'm restarting my fishtank

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

They're smallish (4" tops), easy to care for, and entirely peaceful when submerged. Read up on them, see if they interest you. I'll probably keep one, but you can have the other five or six, if your setup is ready within a month.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

Hm, I just discovered/noticed that the pathologist I've been working with (tghe same one who has the giant trichobezoar on his shelf) has an aquarium in his office. currently there's a pleco and an apple "Golden Mystery" snail (about the size of a plum) in there.

He says he's going to have to bring his other aquarium in because there's a gap between his house closing and the end of construction on his new house. I don't know what he has in that tank.