Finished the angler fish yesterday, complete with parasitic male. I think this is the only knitting project I've ever done that ended up being educational. Did you know that the male angler is 1/10th the size of the female? And that at a certain age, his digestive system shuts down? If he doesn't find a female to attach himself to, he will starve to death. Once attached (by biting her with special teeth), his body fuses to hers and in a couple weeks he is a permanent part of her, sharing her bloodstream for nutrients. A female can have as many as six males attached to her. A perfect mutualistic symbiosis: he gets nutrition, she has a ready supply of sperm for her eggs.
Then there's the lure. Only females have them. The tip glows due to bioluminescent bacteria living in it. Some species have a second lure hanging from their belly; no one is yet sure what the purpose of this one is. Anyway, there is a great video on youtube about these amazing creatures. And because I've *never* been able to get they hyperlinks to work on blogger here is the url to copy & paste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RitJe16c3sM
As you can probably tell, not a whole lot going on today. Need to do some housework, what fun. Need to start a new knitting project. I've got a swatch on the needles right now, although I'm less than thrilled with how it's turning out. Maybe it will look better when I've completed the chart; I've only done about half of it so far.
Love the fish!
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