Star Gazing

Maybe it's because I have three little daughters, but when I imagine a fish called a stargazer, I imagine maybe an opalescent or rainbow-hued fish that sprinkles fairy dust when it swims and goes to the water's surface every night to gaze longingly at the stars above.

But no, what we have in the real stargazer is a spiny fish with eyes on the top of its head so it can lie in wait in the sand and ambush its prey. Rather than stargazing, it's more like underbelly-of-benthic-prey gazing.

They're found the world over in shallow waters. Some come equipped with worm-shaped lures that they wriggle in their mouth, but all come with highly-venomous spines and can deliver quite a wallop of an electric shock.

Thanks for the fish, Tom. Thanks for the disillusionment.

Photo source: Pengo via WikiPedia.org