Remember the slogan that launched the women’s movement, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”? Well, a fish without a tripod is, well, not a Bathypterois grallator , or tripod fish. From Australian Geographic:
Exactly why this fish has evolved to sit on incredibly long fins appears to be as simple as why anyone would choose to prop themselves up on some kind of stilt-like device – to be taller. By sitting perfectly still at around a metre above the seabed, the tripod fish is perfectly positioned for tiny prawns, fish, and crustaceans to come hurtling along on the ocean’s current right into its mouth. At the seabed level, the current is virtually non-existent.
The tripod fish won’t see its prey coming – it’s practically eyeless because of its super-dark habitat – but that doesn’t matter, because its long fins can feel the vibrations made by approaching creatures in the muddy sediment.
And that pair of pectoral fins that sit erect just behind its head? They act like antennae, providing extra sensory information to the tripod fish about incoming prey, and can also usher wandering creatures into the vicinity of its mouth.
This is a classic Darwinist explanation: It claims to tell us why the organism evolved but actually tells us only how it currently functions as a part of its environment, assuming that—like the “aren’t I good?” little girl you of course are, you will not think to ask: But you are only telling me how the organism functions. You are not telling me why (or how) it “evolved” to do so by a series of random steps. So why use the word “evolved” at all? So we can pretend to know stuff we don’t?
Anyway, here’s the fish in still:
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