Dazzling!

  Not many folks even take the time to look at a fish, much less, examine it properly.  Either the fish is released or cleaned and eaten. Not a lot of time is spent staring at a fish...alive or dead..except for the pretty little guys in the aquarium.  A wild fish just passes through our lives as a fun time or as a food source.  (For some of us, it is both.  We love to catch the critters but they are also a source of sustenance.)  I, on the other hand, examine most everything just out of curiosity.

  Mark and I were out on one of our daily hikes when we came across some very large fish scales. We decided these were from a redfish that he had caught back in October.  The fish was cleaned and fried up to feed a whole slew of cousins who were in town.  When he had cleaned the fish, scales flipped all over the place!  Well, obviously, those things do not deteriorate very rapidly.  The scales were still in fine condition. Immediately, the wheels in the artist brain started turning.  "I can make something with these!"  I had no idea just what I would do with the quarter-sized scales but a crafty project just had to be in need of fish scales.  I picked up a handful just in case. 

  Once inside, the scales called for more attention.  I held one up to the light and was impressed with the ridges and swirls that made up the scale. Even though these were out on the ground for several months, I could see faint color!  This excited me to the point that a backlight was utilized for further inspection.  Sure enough, although muted, colors could be seen.  This caused me to ponder.  Why did a redfish scale contain blue, green, purple and a myriad of other colors?  The fish is sort of golden colored not rainbow striped or something!

  It seems that fish scales actually have a lot of colors in them.  This results in sort of a shimmery, iridescence to the fish while it is in the water. According to the fish experts, this dazzling effect is used to the fish's benefit.  When swimming in sunlit waters, the scales almost act like mirrors and can totally confuse larger predators.  Well now, that makes sense!  Contrary to what folks like me would believe, the fish are not just using their dazzling colors and shimmery scales to be pretty! Perhaps fish are not so vain like a lot of humans.  Their flashiness is not to draw attention to themselves but rather escape becoming supper for a larger critter.

  Another interesting fact about fish scales is that they can be "read" by the layers.  This is sort of like what we learned about the growth of a tree.  Using a cross-section of a tree trunk, the growth rings are read to more or less determine the age of the tree.  If it was a good growing year, the ring would be wide but if there was a drought or other detrimental factor during the year, the ring would be narrow.  Well, it seems that the same goes for fish scales.  The rings of the scale can determine whether the fish had plenty to eat or was in clean water. Hmmm?  This fish must have had lots to eat!  It was huge with gigantic scales!  (Yes, I really do examine all of these things and then research them.  Pretty interesting stuff out there in nature if we only take the time to look!)