{"id":24,"date":"2021-10-07T19:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T17:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=102568"},"modified":"2021-10-08T13:06:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T11:06:57","slug":"sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarcastic fringehead: The fish that fights with a kiss"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Helen Pilcher\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 07 October 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

It has an awesome name, with an attitude to match. The sarcastic fringehead is a big-mouthed, bolshy blenny that lives in the temperate coastal waters of California and Mexico\u2019s Baja California.<\/p>\n

These strange fish hang out in their ocean floor dens, which can be burrows, empty shells or even discarded plastic bottles. Males reverse in, bottom first, then defend their territories from other sarcastic fringeheads by dropping caustic one-liners. Only joking! Riled individuals actually face-off by slamming their huge, open mouths together.<\/p>\n

Laterally-splayed jawbones and sail-like cheek membranes reveal a purple tongue, a double row of teeth, and a fluorescent yellow mouth rim. They look part fish, part Demogorgon from Stranger Things<\/em>.<\/p>\n\nIt\u2019s basically a \u2018who\u2019s got the biggest mouth\u2019 competition, where the victor bags the best den and a chance to mate. After the female lays thousands of eggs in the prized location and the male has fertilised them, he then defends his offspring with yet more oral aggro.<\/p>\nThe name \u2018fringehead\u2019 refers to the floppy fronds of tissue that fall over the fish\u2019s eyes, while the term \u2018sarcastic\u2019 is thought either to describe the animal\u2019s sardonic closed-mouth expression, or to derive from the Greek word sark\u00e1zein<\/em>, which means \u2018to tear flesh\u2019. Either way, the only thing that\u2019s cutting about this fish is its set of teeth.<\/p>\nRead more:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul><li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/what-is-a-red-lipped-batfish\/"\">What is a red-lipped batfish?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/what-is-an-axolotl\/"\">What is an axolotl?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/what-is-a-pink-frogmouth\/"\">What is a pink frogmouth?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/what-is-a-bobbit-worm\/"\">What is a bobbit worm?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Helen Pilcher Published: Thursday, 07 October 2021 at 12:00 am It has an awesome name, with an attitude to match. The sarcastic fringehead is a big-mouthed, bolshy blenny that lives in the temperate coastal waters of California and Mexico\u2019s Baja California. These strange fish hang out in their ocean floor dens, which can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":25,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss.jpg",1200,536,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss-1024x457.jpg",800,357,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss.jpg",1200,536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/sarcastic-fringehead-the-fish-that-fights-with-a-kiss.jpg",1200,536,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Helen Pilcher Published: Thursday, 07 October 2021 at 12:00 am It has an awesome name, with an attitude to match. The sarcastic fringehead is a big-mouthed, bolshy blenny that lives in the temperate coastal waters of California and Mexico\u2019s Baja California. These strange fish hang out in their ocean floor dens, which can be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}