Flying gurnard

Tired today

Art 

goal for the week 15.5 hours

Today 

still sanding (yay)

Animal

photo by Michael Aston

The flying gurnard (Dactylopterus volitans) ranges over tropical and temperate coastal waters of the Atlantic. It is in the same order as scorpionfish, but is itself non-venomous. They walk along the ocean floor and use their huge fins to find invertebrates. Like gurnards they have a drumming muscle that can be beaten against their two lobed swim bladder to produce sounds. There are some scientists in Ghana that have figured out how to make non-bovine gelatin from this fish. It seems they wanted to do this because this fish is a frequently wasted by-catch of the Ghana fishing industry. I have to admit upon first seeing this paper I was confused as to why they would want to make gelatin out of an uncommon wild caught fish rather then the byproducts of a widely captive raised mammal.

A video of a flying gurnard swimming (I think this was the right species but it may also be an oriental flying gurnard)