Damned If You Do: Adopting Social Media in Teaching. by Don Orth

Social media is changing the way we interact with friends, families, and many others (Couldrey 2012).  Should it change the way we teach?  We have learning management systems (LMS) so why would we need anything else?  Will it be another time waster?  Adopting social media in teaching does seem to be another damned if you do, damned if you don't choice.   

from Jorge Cham, Piled Higher and Deeper. 

With the prodigious rise in online content we need fewer distractions and better pedagogy.  Yet, our frustrations are not a new.   McLuhan (1964, p 23) wrote "for the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs." The instructor’s choice of media is a critical pedagogical decision in instructional design as it shapes the environment and thought.   Television as a medium taught us that life is packaged in 8-minute segments (Postman 2005). If texts, worksheets, and tests are the dominant media, the the “cram, pass, and forget” model will be adopted by students. I imagine a pedagogy where student 2.0 should help narrate, create, critique, curate, and share the content, although I seldom realize those ideals. Social media plays a role in these ideals.

Binders were my dominant mode of content curation in 1980s and 1990s. 

Social media offers instructors and students to communicate and collaborate in ways that may be efficient, effective, and yes, even transformative.   In my teaching I have transitioned from curating the course content in large binders (1980 s -1990s)  to five different LMSs.  Each time we are promised a better system. But each semester as I curate an improved content, students watch as the content is washed away after exam week, as if what we created together is not worth maintaining for the future.  College administrators advocate for online teaching to alleviate shortage of classroom space. However,  taking bad teaching online is like giving a bad guitar player a bigger amplifier (Ohler 2013, p. 6).   Rather, I advocate more connected and open pedagogy that gives students more control of learning and sharing. 

The internet has also spread the use of memes. Memes are internal representations of knowledge that are culturally inherited.  As educators we can use lessons from memes to help students master and retain key concepts.  Memes can be developed by students with readily available smartphone apps (e.g., QuickMeme, and MemeGenerator) and shared via many networks.  We can use lessons from memes via online communities to help students master and retain key concepts and new terminology (Brodie 2009). 

Students can develop and share fish memes to facilitate retrieval and recall of new taxonomy.

Community of practice is a social learning theory that fits my teaching philosophy.  Learning  is fundamentally experiential and learning is fundamentally social (Wenger 1998).  Therefore, the learning must be open and connected because the knowledge resides in numerous communities.  Yet the structures of our learning management systems make it difficult for students to be connected and for all learning artifacts to be archived and shared. 

Imagine the visual depiction of students at the periphery of the  community of practice.  The vision of student (novices) moving through collaboration toward the core is empowering. I  tell students that accepting the notion that "I am a novice" or "I am becoming" will make  it easier for them to ask questions (for more background, see On Becoming an Ichthyologist). Every action is a chance for to move from periphery to involved. Not all learning takes place in the classroom and the social media trials I describe can assist with motivating students to be active participants in open and connected networks.

Source: Pinterest

Be afraid, very afraid, because Google is making us stupider Carr (2008).   Be afraid of the curse of irrelevance if you stay within the safety of your University's LMS.   Teaching that is closed and disconnected encourages superficial learning. Instead, take one of these bags of gold and change your teaching.  Gardner Campbell and Jim Groom,  in their talk No Digital Facelifts: Thinking the Unthinkable About Open Educational Experience, describe these new possibilities.  Bik and Goldstein (2013) emphasize that we fail to adopt social media because we are afraid of being wrong, being yelled at, or violating some social media norms.  Fears can be reduced by working with a trusted mentor.    I offer these five ways to try out social media in your teaching.

1. Public Writing 
 

Public writing is open and connected learning. Kumpulainan and Sefton-Green (2014, p. 10) wrote "design principles for such connected learning environments include breaking boundaries between formal and informal; valuing learner agency, authority, and accountability; and stressing the importance of learners pursuing meaningful and authentic activities with relevant resources and tools.”  I encourage public posting of essays (i.e., blogs, or op-ed) because the student has an audience.  In some cases I have added students as blog authors and in most other cases, student writing and revision (and revision and revision) is done offline.  Only some final essays are posted on the Virginia Tech Ichthyology blog.  Graduate students are more frequently creating and curating their own blogs (e.g,  Chesapeake Catfish,  Clinch Chronicle, and The Troutlook).  I won't comment on the many blog platform options; just pick a free one (GitHub, Medium, Tumblr, Wix, Weebly, Wordpress) and get started.

2. Twitter and Infographics

Twitter is widely used by instructors.  Don't think of Twitter as a passive website.  Rather consider Twitter as a place to start and continue a discussion.   You will find followers who have similar interests.  Start or follow a discussion with a unique hashtag.  Right now #PenceScience and #NationalBookLoverDay are trending.  Stories of scientists working in the field were shared in the #fieldworkfail discussion on Twitter.    Students can use Twitter in many ways.  Twitter allows students to initiate discussions and invite authors of their readings to weigh in on discussions. A list is a curated group of Twitter users, which allows you and your students to make more connections. 

Sample Infographic or Information Graphic, developed by the USEPA. 

Images and videos added to tweets get more attention. If you want your message to be re-tweeted, make a simple graphic.  In the new media, these are called Information Graphics (i.e., infographics) and a simple assignment to create an infographic on a topic will engage more parts of the brain than "write a summary of the passage from page 368-390."     Another app, called Storify, allows the student to locate and write a summary with tweets posted on a particular topic.   For example, after the death of Michael Brown in  Ferguson, Missouri, educators used the many tweets posted on this story and developed a storify syllabus on the Ferguson issue.  Other Storify stories tell of fieldwork of scientists to support world water day and #scicomm.   

3. Online communities

Many instructors are creating Facebook groups for their classes; there are many Facebook ideas you can adopt.   I have used these since I joined Facebook to easily facilitate student introductions at the beginning of class.  Because of privacy concerns of students (the law known as FERPA) and Facebook evils, I never make membership a requirement.   My Ichthyology Facebook group is a public group and is dominated by past students and other fish enthusiasts.   However, you can create a closed Facebook group.  I use Facebook to join and learn for a variety of groups.   I also maintain a Flickr Ichthyology class site and require students to post their better fish photos (with annotations) to this shared site.   On Flickr I follow my favorite photographers and joined a number of Flickr groups.   Similarly, I follow some individuals on You Tube.  Here I am able to encounter rare and interesting videos that are useful for my teaching.  For example, Brandon Brown  posted a beautiful underwater video of Longear Sunfish breeding behaviors and Cardinal Shiners in breeding colors.   One problem with many learning management systems is they are designed for instructors to post, curate, and deliver content.  If you wish to create an online open learning community you may have to find alternative platforms in which students can create discussion, post materials, and be more engaged in the learning process.   Consider experimenting with PBWorks or  Slack; here are notes from one such experiment.  

4. Digital Storytelling and Video Essays

We need to train people to be inspiring communicators if they are to be effective in their work or public lives (Dahlstrom 2014).  One easy teaching trial is to assign a video Essay instead of a written essay.  One example, is the This I Believe Essay which many college classes have adopted.  In this video version present "I Believe in Resilience."   However, students in the STEM courses seldom write in a narrative form.   I spent many decades teaching before asking students to tell me their stories.   My teaching has personally transformed when I began facilitating student storytelling and sharing my own stories.  When it is safe to tell stories, then learning communities become storytelling  communities.

In my Ichthyology class, I first tell students some key ideas behind learning to study Ichthyology (video) or Stream Habitat Management (video).  This provides students with some background on research on learning that informs practices that I suggest they adopt.  Click for more on How to Learn Ichthyology.   I have found that digital stories have many uses for my teaching.  I can post a short fish mystery that forces students to think about it, or even read the assigned text.   In this post I provide a brief answer the mystery of Bloody Neutrality of the Smallmouth Bass.  

To prompt students to examine defining events in their own young lives,  I share my story Not Everyone Truly Lives and assign students to create a wondering map (Brooks 2010, p. 19-47).    Students are always struggling with new and challenging materials.  I use a digital story assignment in order to get them reflecting on their struggles and sharing the story.  This digital storytelling assignment was described in the post, Inside the head of a fish head.  If you need more background before adopting digital storytelling, start by reading Ohler (2013).  Ohler (2013) presents a number of important revelations about storytelling as pedagogy.  For me, the most important was that the story provides a set of practical processes for resolving issues, educating ourselves, and pursuing our goals, while combining traditional and emerging literacies (Ohler 2013).

The Hero's Journey from Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  "Students need to become heroes of their own learning stories as well as of the stories they tell with their own lives" Ohler (2013, p.  9)

 5. Eportfolios and a Web of One's Own

Gardner Campbell called for giving each student a personal cyberinfrastructure in 2009 podcast or read the text. In 2013 University of Mary Washington initiated Domain of ones own where first-year students are assigned a web domain name.  Dozens of other universities have adopted similar initiatives.  The University provides free, personal domain names and web hosting and students take control of their work.   Creating a domain of one's own may be the most important wickedly subversive education innovation of our times (Waters 2014).  Listen to Ted talk by Jim Groom and find out why Jim Groom rocks.
 
Bass 2014 wrote "E-portfolios are at heart a set of pedagogies and practices that link learners to learning, curriculum to the cocurriculum, and courses and programs to institutional outcomes."  Here is a place for the student to reflect and narrate about their learning experience, show the artifacts of their learning, organize and curate their scholarly works, and share with others.  Most importantly, ePortfolios are leaner-centric and may demonstrate a student's creativity and sense of wonder better than any exam.   I use ePortfolio as a course-level demonstration of student learning; it's been ten years since I gave students the option of creating a hard-copy portolio.  Students can choose to make their final ePortfolio private or public.   For one example, click here.   The easiest way to initiate this trial is to develop your own teaching portfolio and use your struggles and successes to help model the ePortfolio development process.   See My Teaching Portfolio.

Try one of these ideas!  Social media have vastly changed how we communicate online. Our students are no longer just consumers of online media.  Fisheries educators have a key role to play in training fisheries students in the  communications of fisheries issues for multiple diverse audiences. Students 2.0 are content creators, curators, distributors, editors, opinion makers, and much more. Consequently, it is our responsibility as educators to help student 2.0 to navigate through the social media.  It is also our responsibility to remind students and instructors that not all learning is digital and, further, outreach to some publics must be face to face (see The Grapevine).  While the media landscape has changed dramatically, the criteria for evaluating the credibility of media (arguments, evidence, conclusions, implications) have not.  If you choose not to adopt social media, you might be damned with the curse of irrelevance.

References

Bass, R. 2014. The next whole thing in higher education. Peer Review. Winter 2014, 16(1):35.   

Bik, H.M. and M.C. Goldstein. 2013. An introduction to social media for scientists. PLoS Biology 11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535 
Brooks, K. 2010. You majored in what? Mapping your path from chaos to career. Plume. Penguin Group. New York. 322 pp. 

Carr, N. 2008. Is Google making us stupid? The Atlantic. July/August.

Couldry, N. 2012.  Media, society, world: social theory and digital media practics. Polity. 242 pp.

Dahlstrom, M.F. 2014. Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (Supplement 4):13583-13584.  
Grossman, G. D., D. J. Orth, and J. Neuswanger. 2016. Innovative teaching methods in Fisheries Education.  Fisheries 41(8):451-457.

Kumpulainan, K., and J. Sefton-Green 2014. What is connected learning and how to research it? International Journal of Learning and Media 4:7-18. doi:10.1162/IJLM_a_00091
McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding media: the extensions of man. Signet, New York. 318 pp.

Ohler, J. 2013. Digital storytelling in the classroom: new media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity, 2nd Edition.  Corwin. 304 pp. 
Waters, A. 2014.  Beneath the cobblestones...a domain of one's own.  Hack Education.  April 25, 2014.  

Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Watch That Fish Move! By Don Orth

Fishes have an amazing variety of body forms, each of which is uniquely adaptive. In many cases, the best way to understand the significance of the adaptation is to watch the fish in action. Here are a few video clips that demonstrate that form follows function.

The Tangerine Darter Percina aurantiaca  is a large darter that is common in the Tennessee River drainage.   It darts among the spaces between boulders and cobbles that form the streambed.  Watch as the Tangerine Darter makes short darting movements in this underwater video (video courtesy of  Ed Scott).  

Tangerine darter Percina aurantiaca Photo by Brett Albanese.  Source

The tail-slap

Thresher sharks (Alopias spp) use their long tail to daze, smash, or kill schooling prey fish, such as sardines.  Watch this Thresher shark hunt with its tail!   Click here for the video.  Simon Oliver and his co-investigators at the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, videotaped thresher sharks and discovered that the tail-slap can be administered either sideways or overhead, depending on the alignment of the sardine bait ball.  After the tail-slap, the thresher shark turned 180 degrees and consumed the dead and/or stunned sardines.  The sequence occurs quickly, lasting only 1.13 to 3.40 seconds.  During the strike, the average speed of the tip of the thresher shark tail was 14 meters per second!

Sequence of still images of thresher shark body movements throughout the tail-slap. Photos from Oliver et al. (2013).

The Ambush

In contrast to the active tail-slap hunting strategy, gars (Lepisosteidae) are sit-and-wait predators that passively wait and then ambush prey.  This video from the clear springs of Florida show the coloration of the Florida Gar Lepisosteus platyrhincus and its dominant behavior, the sit and wait posture.   Most of the time the gar lies motionless near the water surface.  When a prey fish is nearby it will slowly stalk until its head is positioned laterally to the prey fish.  They then use a rapid sideways lunge of the head during the strike and impale the prey on the numerous sharp teeth. . This lateral lunge lasts only 25-40 milliseconds (Porter and Moto 2004). 

Florida Gar Lepisosteus platyrhincus  Source

The Jump

Fish have both a sustained and burst swimming mode. One unusual behavior is the jump, where a fish uses the burst swimming mode to leap clear from the water.  Many times I have seen the jumping behavior of Common Carp Cyprinus carpio.  However, I have no satisfactory answer to “why do carp jump?”  My favorite hypothesis is that the jumping behavior forces more oxygen over the gills. But no one really knows.  But look at that carp jump! 

Tambaqui Colossoma macropomum jump for a different reason.  In the flooded forest of the Amazon the Tambaqui jumps to eat tree fruits and nuts.  The Tamaqui deposits the tree seed after passage through the gut, thereby dispersing the seed.  Watch the Tamaqui jump to capture a fruit from a tree. 

The Camouflage Carpet

Wobegong, or carpet sharks (family Orectolobidae), are named for the ornate pattern that resembles a carpet.  Like a swimming carpet, the well-camouflaged Wobegong Carpet Shark moves along the bottom.  Watch the slow swimming camouflaged carpet shark! When it holds a single position the wobegong becomes an ambush predator and swallows prey whole.  Watch the swallower.

The Mimick

Ornate Ghost pipefish Solenostomus paradoxusmimicks soft corals, hydroids, whip corals and gorgonian corals.  The small protrusions that cover the animal's body help break outline so it blends with its complex microhabitat. Watch that pipefish!  It’s not so much the movement as the mimicry.

Ornate Ghost pipefish Solenostomus paradoxus  Source

The Beach Burrower

California grunion, Leuresthes tenuis, and the Gulf grunion Leurestheses sardinas provide a easy-to-observe beach burrowing behavior at high tide during their breeding.  You have to watch that fish.  Watch as the female grunions burrow into the sand to deposit their eggs. 

 

Grunion life cycle is synchronized by the lunar cycle where breeding occurs at high tides.  Illustration by Greg Martin

So watch the fish and learn more about their unique adaptations.   Share your observations and videos with others.

References

Oliver SP, Turner JR, Gann K, Silvosa M and D'Urban Jackson T  2013.  Thresher sharks use tail-slaps as a hunting strategy. PLoS ONE, 8 (7): e67380.http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067380

Porter, H.T. and P.J. Moto 2004. A comparison of strike and prey capture kinematics of three species of piscivorous fishes: Florida gar (Lepisosteus platyrhincus), redfin needlefish (Strongylura notata), and great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda). Marine Biology 145:989-1000.  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-004-1380-0

When Pretty Hurts: Dragonet's Coloration Makes Them a Target, by Evie Gillis

In the tropical waters of the Western Pacific, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Austrailia there hiding amongst the broken coral you can find perhaps the most distinctively marked fish in the sea, the Mandarin dragonet or Synchiropus splendidus, Recognized and sought by many due to its unparalleled coloring, the Mandarinfish is a difficult fish to maintain in an aquarium environment due to its feeding habits and selective mating. Such a beautiful fish faces overwhelming odds to survive outside of their natural habitat and will continue to be obtained by inadequate owners simply because of their beauty.

The name for the Mandarin dragonet was given to them because of their bright and extreme colors and patterns, which were thought to resemble the robes of an Imperial Chinese officer called a mandarin (Diving with Mandarinfish 2012). Sometimes called psychedelic fish due to their intense coloration, they are primarily blue with green, orange, purple, and yellow stripes swirling around their bodies (Diving with Mandarinfish 2012). Aside from their very distinctive coloring, the Mandarinfish is also recognizable through its swimming habits by rapidly pulsing their fins giving them the appearance that they are hovering much like a hummingbird. They are not a very large fish, generally reaching only around six centimeters, with the males growing larger than the females. In addition to being larger than females, the males also have a very elongated first dorsal spine which the females lack (Diving with Mandarinfish 2012).

 

A beautiful Mandarinfish (Synchiropus splendidus)  Source,  licensed by CC 4.0

During mating season, which happens over a period of several months during the year, females will select a male to mate with, preferring bigger and stronger males to smaller ones. The female will rest on the male’s pelvic fin and then they will align themselves to be stomach-to-stomach and rise slowly about one meter in the water column above the reef. At the top of their ascent, the fish will release a cloud of sperm and eggs and then disappear abruptly seeking refuge once again in the coral below (Wittenrich 2010). The females are specific in choosing their mating partners, making these fish difficult to breed in captivity.

The Mandarinfish does not have scales but instead has a mucous-coated skin that not only protects it from parasites and other such skin diseases, but it also repels predators due to its bad taste. Their extreme coloration also serves as a visual warning to predators that they are not a tasty snack. For its own diet, the Mandarin dragonet is very picky preferring copepods, protozoans, and other small invertebrates in abundance making them difficult to feed in captivity (Diving with Mandarinfish 2012). Unfortunately, Mandarinfish are sought after by many divers and marine fish collectors due to their inexplicable beauty.

Aquariums are beautiful places, full of exotic fish that most people will never have the opportunity to see in the wild. According the World Wildlife Fund – Philippines, “approximately 20 million tropical saltwater fish are sold annually, about 11 million of which are bought in the United States” (Rose 2014). Out of those 20 million fish, up to 80 percent of specific marine fish can die before they are sold. Casualties are high for a variety of reasons including “harmful methods of capture, improper holding conditions, unsatisfactory shipping methods, and stress related illnesses” (Rose 2014).  Of the remaining fish that do survive transport, an estimated 90 percent die within the first year of capture due to inexperienced handlers (Rose 2014).

Mandarin dragonets are no exception to the casualties of the aquarium trade mainly due to their extremely finicky diet. As stated previously, Mandarinfish prefer to eat live copepods and other small invertebrates which are hard to keep in an aquarium especially at the large numbers that Mandarinfish require. Most dragonets will starve to death before ever making it to their aquarium destination and those who do not die in the journey arrive in emaciated condition and rarely recover (Wittenrich 2010).

Trying to breed Mandarinfish in captivity is very difficult and even if the owner does have two dragonets of different sexes in the same aquarium, they will still most likely not mate. Mandarinfish prioritizes food above reproducing and will refuse to mate if they are in poor condition (Wittenrich 2010). If the fish are well fed they may not mate if the male is smaller than the female, as studies of them in their natural habitat show that females prefer the larger males. Smaller males will often be bullied by the females and in some cases, the females will attack the males and chase them away (Wittenrich 2010). However there has been recent success on captive breeding. If the fish are healthy and the female finds the male a suitable mating partner, they will spawn and it has been found that their offspring will eat captive fish food rather than only live copepods (Wittenrich 2010). This is very exciting considering that the Mandarinfish is grossly over-targeted for their beautiful colors and their habitats are shrinking more and more every year with the use of trawling (Rose 2014). Perhaps there is a future in captive bred dragonets, sparing the non-captive ones the painful side-effects of aquarium life.

For being such a stunning creature full of vibrant blues, greens, oranges, yellows, and purples the Mandarin dragonet faces a hard life in captivity. Highly sought after for their aesthetics and cute movements, the Mandarinfish most likely faces a life of starvation ahead of them in a tank with inexperienced caretakers and inadequate mates. If tighter restrictions were placed on Mandarinfish and they were only sold to aquariums with notable reputations and specialized caretakers, it would help ensure that there is a little beauty left for everyone to enjoy both in captive and natural habitats.

References

Dive the World. "Diving with Mandarinfish." Creature Feature. Dive the World.com.        http://www.dive-the-world.com/creatures-mandarinfish.php  (accessed April 1, 2016).

Rose, Alex. "The Saltwater Aquarium Hobby: Why Wild Caught?" The Saltwater Aquarium Hobby: Why Wild Caught? Fish Channel. http://www.fishchannel.com/sustainable-reefkeeper/why-wild-caught.aspx (accessed April 1, 2016).

Wittenrich, Matthew L.  Breeding Mandarins (Full Article). Tropical Fish Magazine. http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/articles/breeding-mandarins-full-article.htm (accessed April 1, 2016).

 

The Sinuous Salamanderfish, by Derek Wheaton

-->A bit of an enigma in the fish world, the Salamanderfish (Lepidogalaxias salamandroides Mees 1961) is a small fish (up to about 70mm in length) endemic to the coastal scrub and peat flats of southwestern Australia(Pusey 1990). What may initially appear to most as a small, brown, boring little fish is actually incredibly remarkable for a variety of reasons, once a bit more is understood. The most obviously strange thing about this fish, which happens to be the driver for all its other unusual traits, is the fish’s habitat. This fish is found exclusively in small temporary pools that dry up in the middle of summer(Berra and Allen 1989). Indeed, for those of us familiar with the ecology of “vernal pools” here in the US, these water bodies are unique and valuable for having a lack of fish that allows various other creatures to utilize them. This is not so in Australia, where the Salamanderfish thrives in a seemingly impossible habitat through the benefits of its very strange adaptations. The ability to burrow to survive dry spells, breathe through its skin, perform internal fertilization, and several bone modifications are a bit like fishy superpowers, allowing this strange fish to thrive in a hostile world. 

Salamanderfish Lepidogalaxias salamandroides (Mees 1961) Photo by Gerry Allen

-Burrowing & Aestivation

In order to utilize a habitat that dries out, a fish must have a way of getting through this hostile period until wetter times arrive. This ability is not unheard of in the fish world: some killifish, for instance, lay eggs that can survive (and may even require) a period of dormancy in dry conditions. Others, like the large familiar lungfishes, burrow into the ground and aestivate. The Salamanderfish falls into this second category. These remarkable little fish move below the surface of the sand and leaf litter in search of substrate hydrated by ground water, and, remarkable for a fish of this size, they have been recovered up to 60cm (about 2 feet) below the surface! Interestingly they are incredibly quick to re-emerge, and when their habitat was experimentally rehydrated with water from a fire truck, fish were captured as little as 8 minutes later (Berra and Allen 1989). The ability to survive dry periods and rapidly resume normal activity is of huge benefit to a fish that inhabits such a seasonally hostile environment.  

Salamanderfish in process of burrowing.   Photo by Auscape.

 -Cutaneous respiration

Another incredible adaptation, related to aestivation but significant enough to mention separately, is the ability of this species to perform cutaneous respiration. In what must have been a delicate task, researchers separated the head and gill structures from the rest of the body by putting a “collar” around the fish and measured oxygen and CO₂ levels while the fish was out of water. They were able to determine that L. salamandroides is capable of considerable gas exchange through the skin. Surprisingly, however, they also determined that when out of water, this fish does not produce extra mucous or have any other apparent mechanism to prevent dessication, so while they can breathe out of water, they must stay moist in order to survive any prolonged period on land or in the substrate (Martin et al. 1993). Another interesting aspect of this is that, unlike many other aestivating fish species, the Salamanderfish does not have the ability to survive hypoxic water conditions (Berra & Allen, 1995) and has no accessory breathing apparatus in the swim bladder or gills (Berra et al. 1989). The reason for this may be because the typical habitat of this fish is physically predisposed to gas exchange, being relatively shallow pools of water with relatively large surface area. Except under the influence of extreme amounts of microbial oxygen usage, water in this situation would likely contain plenty of dissolved oxygen by default. One possible benefit of cutaneous respiration when the fish is not able to maintain water balance, may be forays above the waterline to forage on insects. This has not yet been studied in this species, but it is within the realm of possibility, as the Mangrove Killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus Poey 1880), a small estuarine species of similar habitat and ability, has been shown to actively feed above the waterline (Pronko et al. 2013).

-Internal fertilization

Back in the water, in good conditions at the appropriate time of year, it’s time for the Salamanderfish to breed. In yet another plot twist, this fish defies the odds yet again by practicing internal fertilization. Lepidogalaxias salamandroides males possess a modified anal fin with a scaly sheath that serves as an intromittent organ, while females have ciliated ducts connecting to the ovaries and are capable of storing sperm. Strangely, there has not been observed to be any courtship display, but instead the male approaches a female and rolls her so he can position his anal fin and scaly sheath adjacent to her vent. The scaly sheath structure apparently secretes a kind of adhesive mucous that connects the mating pair (with a researcher even noting that when lifted from the water they remained attached!)(Pusey and Stewart 1989). The function or history of internal fertilization can only be theorized at this point. This species has undergone dramatic changes in taxonomic placement, most recently being placed in the basal position of euteleosts (Li et al. 2010), and therefore it is difficult to make connections to where this may have arose in the evolution of this species. Its mode of fertilization is quite unlike any other teleost (Pusey and Stewart 1989), making it difficult to ascertain the origin. It has been theorized that internal fertilization evolved as a response to the often highly acidic conditions in which this species lives, which is a hostile environment for sperm, or that this (and the mucous adhesion which subsequently serves to form a “plug”) arose as a result of sperm competition (Pusey and Stewart 1989). This subject requires additional study to elucidate the evolutionary details of this process.

-Bone and skull adaptations – neck bending

 When one first observes the Salamanderfish, most of these interesting facets are not readily apparent. One thing that does, however, immediately grasp the attention is this fish’s amazing (in the fish world) ability to turn its head. This fish is capable of moving its skull directionally both side-to-side and up-and-down as much as 90 degrees (Berra and Allen 1989). This is possible because the distance between the back of the skull and the cervical vertebrae is relatively large, allowing an enhanced degree of flexibility. Besides this increased flexibility potentially aiding in the ability to burrow, this fish lacks typical musculature surrounding the eye, preventing the Salamanderfish from moving the eye within its socket (Mcdowall and Pusey 1983). Thus, the ability to bend the neck may be of crucial importance during foraging and feeding, allowing the fish to lie nearly motionless on the bottom while scanning the environment for prey. Despite being such a small fish, L. salamandroides has a formidable array of teeth, which may assure the consumption of any prey captured by the fish. The reinforced, wedge-shaped skull and largely reduced ribs may be adaptations that additionally enhance burrowing by decreasing drag and increasing flexibility, aiding in travel through the substrate (Berra and Allen 1989).  For a demonstration of the neck-bending ability of this fish, see video.

Neck bending Salamanderfish.  Photo by Tim Berra

With a huge variety of specialized adaptations, the Salamanderfish (Lepidogalaxias salamandroides Mees 1961) is a truly fascinating example of a fish living where a fish shouldn’t really be. A curious suite of characters have led this species to drive taxonomists crazy, with its placement on the evolutionary tree changing often since its discovery as ichthyologists struggle to determine where it belongs. This animal has proven intensely fascinating some researchers who continue to unravel the mysteries of its uniqueness. In the meantime, while we are struggling to understand it, the Salamanderfish will continue to eke out a living in one of the most hostile environments known to fish-kind.

References

Berra, T., and G. Allen. 1989. Burrowing, emergence, behavior, and functional morphology of the Australian salamanderfish, Lepidogalaxias salamandroides. Fisheries 2415(May 2014):37–41.

Berra, T. M., D. M. Sever, and G. R. Allen. 1989. Gross and Histological Morphology of the Swimbladder and Lack of Accessory Respiratory Structures in Lepidogalaxias salamandroides , an Aestivating Fish from Western Australia.  Copeia  1989(4):850–856.

Li, J., R. Xia, R. M. McDowall, J. A. Lopez, G. Lei, and C. Fu. 2010. Phylogenetic position of the enigmatic Lepidogalaxias salamandroides with comment on the orders of lower euteleostean fishes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 57(2):932–936.

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