Zoologica42

I already regret making this Notes under the cut:

The genus Phago is a member of the order Characiformes along with the tetras, tigerish, and piranhas. It currently has three recognized species, which all inhabit Central African rivers. Now for the mouth, members of Phago are all pterygophagous, meaning that they feed primarily by nipping the fins of other fishes. While they can, and do, take other prey this fin-feeding behavior is the reason for the weird jaws. Phago can therefore be understood as a type of parasite, one which feeds from, but does not kill its host. Since ripped fins can heal, it's a pretty good strategy to ensure these fish have a steady food supply. Anyhow, I just think these little guys are neat, even if a bit creepy.

fin-biting behavior in captivity

-Early man is imagined as a herder rather than a hunter. Despite being far removed from our “modern” protagonists, he is not the “savage” animalistic man Verne has written about in other works.

-the entire gang (including Top and Jup) all accidentally eat a hallucinogenic plant, everyone is freaking out except for Cyrus who with his characteristic steady nature (tm) has a conversation about hydraulics with a purple tiger. 

-Spilette writes a gossip column about Pencroft and Neb making out (he saw the whole thing), then promptly destroys it

-Spilette briefly goes mad from lack of journalistic activities, tries to interview one of the onagers. 

-Herbert goes surfing -Cyrus builds Pencroft a model train set so that he will shut up about putting a train line on the island. -Herbert calls Cyrus “mom” while he has Malaria

-Neb gets really into trying to make pastry for about a week

-Ayrton dramatically walks away from the group to go have a sulk but trips on a rock about 10 feet away from them

One: they are exceptionally beautiful. The most commonly studied species, Nothobranchius furzeri (turquoise killifish) looks like this:

But other members of the genus look like this (Stratt et al. may have included them in the cargo to diversify the stock in case of disease or other species-specific concerns):

see ebird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S36881163 full size image under the cut: