This morning I lead a bird walk for VARC at Jericho Beach Park. I arrived a bit early to get a sense of what was around. While checking one stretch of beach, I saw a spiky dorsal fin protruding from the water near the shoreline.

Upon closer inspection, I was surprised to find this strange looking fish swimming weakly and being tumbled by the tide. I took some photos with my phone and quickly submitted them to iNaturalist, which helped me ID it as a Spotted Ratfish (Hydrolagus colliei).

These fish are chimaera – cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes.

From Wikipedia:

At one time a “diverse and abundant” group (based on the fossil record), their closest living relatives are sharks and rays, though their last common ancestor with them lived nearly 400 million years ago. Living species (aside from plough-nose chimaeras) are largely confined to deep water.

I considered trying to push it back out to deeper water, but decided not to intervene. If it was dying, the last thing I wanted was to fill its final moments with terror.

I suspect it was dispatched soon after I left, as it was being carefully eyed by a nearby Glaucous-winged Gull.

Reading

• Colossal claims that dodo “de-extinction” is right around the corner (5-7 years). But at best they’ll get a “faux-doh” - a clear, incisive article on the ridiculousness (and near impossibility) of ‘de-extincting’ animals.
• The Microbial Masters of Earth’s Climate - short dispatches on microbes and their role in climate, part of a new issue from Quanta Magazine entited How We Came To Know Earth

Listening

• Slack key guitar is something I had never heard of until last week – what a fascinating history. Here’s a taste:

Photos

Sunrise at ƛ̓éxətəm (tla-hut-um) Regional Park

Two-striped Grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittatus)

Low tide at Boundary Bay

Until next week…

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