#halfbeak

You get a Black-Barred Halfbeak

Brought to you by a marine biologist and one of the weirder ones we’ve done...

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I’ve said this once and you will hear it again - fish show an incredible range of diversity. They are masters of the underwater world, because no matter what the challenge, they step up with some crazy adaptations. Sometimes, those adaptations are so bizarre that scientists still argue about what it’s actually for, how that trait benefits the organism, or, if maybe all of that breaks down because one of the sexes loves the trait no matter how detrimental to the other’s health it could be. So, today we will cover the Japanese Halfbeak, a truly strange fish that, yeah, really looks like that!

Gosh, the AC Pocket Camp sprite doesn’t even do it justice, as you’ll see in a bit. This fish is available in ACPC during the Spring, which goes along with its seasonality irl. They, like many fish in the AC series, are caught for food in Japan, for which they are called Sayori. Sayori is best caught between Winter and Summer, particularly after they spawn in April to June (which is also a great fishery management strategy, making sure the fish make more fish before being food for people ;D ).

The Japanese Halfbeak is named to species - (Hyporhamphus sajori). They are a pelagic (lives in the water column) fish that occurs in coastal areas near China and Japan. They belong in the Order Beloniformes, which, if that sounds familiar to you and it should, is the same order that includes flying fish, as well as needlefish, and sauries. All of these fish are low-on-the-food-chain important, being food for not just people, but for the bigger, more charismatic fish that we love or love to eat, like sharks and tunas. Halfbeaks themselves have a weird taxonomy. There isn’t a full consensus about where they “go” within Beloniformes, but as it stands right now, they are in the family Hemiramphidae. 

 Anyway, halfbeaks in general are really strange. Right off the bat, you’re gonna notice that their bottom jaw in elongated - in some species it can be ten times the length of the upper jaw. But it’s not really their jaw, it’s basically their chin that protrudes like that - the lower part of their actual mouth matches the upper half. Still, what the hell, nature? 

This is a great picture showing what I mean!

So, yeah, why??? Well, scientists aren’t 100% sure yet. At first, you may be inclined to think it has something to do with feeding - after all, it’s attached to the mouth and kind of looks like the bill of a billfish, but, like, upside-down. And that’s kind of close. Though the halfbeak doesn’t use this long chin as a weapon, it may just use it to find food when visibility is low. Studies conducted on the halfbeak of the halfbeak show that it is pockmarked with pores that feed into the lateral line system of the fish. For review, the lateral line is a sense of touch in fish in which they can feel vibrations in the water. A study found that a nocturnal species of halfbeak was able to locate its large and alive zooplankton dinner in total darkness using that weird chin. That tracks. After all, being nocturnal probably helps this little fish not become dinner itself to diurnal predators like seabirds. As always, though, more science needs to be done to confirm this.

Halfbeak (Hemiramphidae)

Ribbon halfbeak (Euleptorhamphus viridis)