Slingjaw Wrasse

Image: Mark Rosenstein
Epibulus insidiator

You're at a party, having fun, drinking drinks, nibbling nibbles when suddenly, disaster strikes: they've run out of those little sausages on sticks! What madness is this? What lunacy? What dark forces are at work to deprive us of our little sausages on sticks?

You look around and notice that some, fellow party-goers are walking around with paper plates piled high with gluttonous quantities of little sausages on sticks. They've hoarded them, the rascals!

Decorated Warbonnet

Image: David Csepp, NMFS/AKFSC/ABL
Chirolophis decoratus

To battle!

Grab your warbonnet! Don your grapple-gown! Your battle-bodice! Your combat-corset! Peril-petticoat! Havoc-heels! And don't forget the embroidery of enmity and the sequins of strife.

Orbicular Batfish

Image: dachalan
Platax orbicularis

The Orbicular Batfish. A dead leaf mimic so expert, so elite, so dead leafy, that they... thought it was a bat? Hmmmm... Something fishy's going on here. Batfishy.

South American Leaffish

Image: Chris Geatch

It's a carnivorous leaf! The vegetables have finally had enough and are seeking revenge against us all! Especially vegetarians. Those juice-thirsty vegetarians.

Pentagrammatical Décor of the Hallowe'en Horrors

It's Halloween! That time of year when we kick the bucket with death, kick our heels with darkness, and kick angelic beings in the shins with evil! Woo!

Black Scorpionfish

Image: zslamaj
Scorpaena porcus

It's the original Scorpionfish!

Look how amazingly scorpion and fish she is.

Stonefish

Image: revjlw

What do you get when you combine a fish and a stone?

Sea Sweep

Image: Saspotato
Scorpis aequipinnis

If a chimney sweep is someone who cleans chimneys...

Cockatoo Waspfish

Image: Daniel Kwok
Ablabys taenianotus

No, it's not the Flamingo Dogfrog or the Hummingbird Antelopewhale, those are obviously completely made up.

Ambon Scorpionfish

Image: Steve Childs
Pteroidichthys amboinensis

I think the word we're looking for is "eyebrows"...

Australian Prowfish

Image: John Turnbull

A prow is the pointy, front end of a boat. It serves to cut through the water as the ship makes its way through the waves.

Australian Prowfish do look a bit like prows but they're most certainly not cutting the waves at full speed. They're far too lazy for that kind of thing and even if they tried, it turns out they'd have a tough time keeping to a straight line...

Red-lipped Batfish

Ogcocephalus darwini

Give your auntie Ena a kiss, why don't you?

Leaf Scorpionfish

Image: _Bunn_
Taenianotus triacanthus

It's what the agricultural world has been crying out for: pink, carnivorous leaves. We'll never need pesticides again!

Cockatoo Flounder

Image: FishWise Professional
Samaris cristatus

It's a fish that wants to show off her pearly whites!

What's up with all these pigfish?

Image: Kevin Bryant

Are pigs and fish natural bedfellows? I never thought so. I always imagined them in separate beds, separate rooms, separate homes and quite possibly separate landmasses. Like a proper, aristocratic marriage. Except one of them wouldn't be on a landmass. So... some kind of mer-people thing, I guess? Or dolphins. I bet loads of people have married dolphins by now.

It seems not everyone agrees about the merging of pig and fish. Apparently, some people see a fish and immediately think pig. We learned about the Hogfish before. They were those members of the wrasse family who used their elongated snouts to snuffle through the sea floor, searching for snails, crabs and other shelled creatures to crack open with their canine teeth.

As it turns out, this particular species of Hogfish is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the meeting of the porcine and the piscine.

Monkeyface Prickleback

Image: NOAA/MBARI
Cebidichthys violaceus

Monkeyface Prickleback.

Monkeyface.

Prickleback.

This thing is a walking insult!

Jawfish

Image: Kevin Bryant

What do we humans do with our jaws? Bite, chew, talk and... that's about it. Pitiful, right? Aside from a few visits to the dentist and the odd plastic surgeon, we have a lamentable lack of imagination when it comes to finding exciting projects for the lower portion of our faces.

Well then, thank goodness for Jawfish. They'll teach us a thing or two.

Sargassum Fish

Image: Izuzuki
Histrio histrio

It's the tiger of the seaweed. The monkey of the floating garden. The... fish of the sargassum.

Rhinopias Scorpionfish

Image: Tom Demeyer

Aahhhh... The joy of weird fish!

Hogfish

Image: Sander van der Wel
Lachnolaimus maximus

Look at that lovely fish! The subtle, pearly pattern on his cheek...

You need to get really close to see it clearly but...