Evan's Scribbly Place

Brought to you by a marine biologist continuing with eels...

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So, yesterday we covered yet another moray eel, and today, we won't! Of the eels present in the Animal Crossing franchise, moray eels still make up about 44% of them, even when we include today's new eel, the Darkfin Pike Eel.

The Darkfin Pike Eel was available in ACPC throughout the summer of 2023 and hasn't returned. It was uncommon at Saltwater Shores, but being under a long, thin shadow, as other eels are, might have made it easier to sus out.

I find it funny that the English version of the game calls this the Darkfin Pike Eel, which is the common name used in Australia. The more widespread common name is the Daggertooth Pike Conger (Muraenesox cinereus), with "pike congers" being a brand new group of eels AC hasn't included until now! Pike congers are true eels in the Order Anguilliformes. Their Family, Muraenesocidae, is within the Suborder Congroidei, which includes the proper conger eels. This means today's fish is more closely related to our garden eels (the splendid and spotted) than it is to our morays and other eel friends. ACPC did a great job on this sprite - the important details are in the well-developed pectoral fins this species has, the long, pointed face, and the sharp teeth!

From Joel Sartore's (National Geographic photographer and speaker) Photo Ark - https://www.joelsartore.com/product/photo-ark-book/

And it's in the game because - you guessed it - it is a popular food fish in Japan. They actually have a very hefty fishery and are considered a delicacy in some parts of Japan.

The Daggertooth can get pretty damn big, with large specimens growing to 7ft or over 2m. They live throughout the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to IndoChina and Japan. They have well-developed jaws and...their teeth are just crazy. The upper jaw has a single row of teeth down the middle instead of being normal. The end of the lower jaw almost resembles a spike ball, with large dagger-like teeth just springing up from the gums. That's probably where it got its name. I'd also hazard an educated guess that these teeth are amazing at catching and holding onto slippery prey like fish, which they do feed on.

Eels, in general, and for the most part, are naked. That includes the Daggertooth. They don't have scales, and if they do, they are embedded deep in the skin, very much unlike the type of fish scales you would first think of. Lots of fish are naked, which I know from experience doesn't really register to most people. That is, unless you're Kosher, in which case, this can actually turn into a big deal, depending upon how strictly you observe. For the rest of the class, "Kosher" refers to food that adheres to Jewish dietary laws. One of these laws states that to be Kosher, you mustn't eat seafood unless it has scales and fins. This basically rules out all types of crustaceans and mollusks, or really anything that isn't a fish. For some people, as long as it's clearly a fish, it's fine, but others do go further and avoid scale-less fish, like eels. The more you know!

Scales are important to the fish that have them - they provide an extra layer of protection from predators, parasites, and also just simply scratching themselves on something in their environment. For some fish, though, scales aren't worth it. Eels, and lots of other naked fish, cover themselves in very thick coats of slime to protect themselves in the way that scales might. Without scales, they also have behaviors that protect them. They may be great at camouflage, they might burrow into sediment, or they'll hang out in very narrow crevices all day, all as ways to circumvent the fact that they are naked and vulnerable. As we have covered many times on AC Fish Explained, all traits have pros and cons. Losing a trait and thriving anyway (there are just about 1000 species of eels) probably means you're better off without it. (And by "better off" I mean, the animal can now use the energy and resources it would have used to build and maintain scales on some other trait, or becoming more fecund (aka having more babies), or getting bigger, etc etc etc...)

Registeel: 01000011 01100001 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101001 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101111 01101111 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01100100 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01101011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100001 01100110 01110100 01100101 01110010

PONYO (2008) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

Most of the guns being used by the main characters are modified Taurus PT99 pistols, the different types of which are often named after specific types of knives and swords, thus enabling them to not have to change the Shakespearean dialogue, but to also manage that specific visual pun. 

So Shakespeare would have absolutely been 100% all over that shit.

For example, Tybalt’s gun is a modified 9mm “Rapier” (from the Taurus PT99 Series ‘R’) and is actually one of my favorite visual aesthetics of quite probably any weapon in movie history to date. 

While everyone else seems to be using a much more heavier and “powerful” version of pistol, his is sleek and light in frame, making it much easier for him to fight the way that he does. Which is undoubtedly Extra™ in comparison to everyone else, but also intended to mimic the dueling stance of actual rapier swordsmen of the time who relied on speed rather than brute force. They were Gentlemen after all. If you were going to cut someone down you ought to do it with some finesse.

If you look closely at his hand you’ll notice that with the exception of his middle finger on the trigger, he’s actually holding it the way one would a sword hilt. He’s also got the poise of a honed duelist. 

This is someone who has been brought up with a very strong sense of Family Honor, and is expected to fight to defend it, but not as a common foot soldier (who carry “longswords” which are modified shotguns in the film), but as a Gentleman. 

A gentleman who suddenly finds himself having to fight in the streets with people carrying “daggers”.

Like Mercutio’s modified pistol, which while beautiful and (importantly thematic) transparent in its function, is also heavy and cumbersome in comparison to Tybalt’s rapier, which also has a much further range, something he also makes better use of with the addition of a quick release mount for a c-scope, which allows him to either be slow and accurate, or to forgo accuracy for speed during say, a one on one duel vs a street brawl.

Which means even if he can’t make as many quickfire short range movements as Mercutio can, he’s still going to fucking obliterate him with the practiced ease of someone who has been training for duels their entire life.