Cleared and stained ofc

Gotta be a cowfish or some other ostraciid right?

Not the only gripe I have with this fish. Name too long, too many double letters. It will never fit cleanly into an Excel spreadsheet and I will never be quite sure that I've spelled it correctly. I'm no common name fan but can we just call this, like, "spotted pearlside" and be done with it?

A really quite pathetic looking specimen of a deep sea fish held on an upsettingly stained blue plastic glove. The fish has a big eye and a smushed face with a dark stomach, and the back half is spotted with regular dark clumps of black pigment and photophores.

Valenciennellus tripunctulatus was named by such a liar. There are way more than three puncts on that fish, I can see like 16 without even trying that hard. This is a callout post for Laurits Martin Esmark #LauritsMartinEsmarkIsOverDay

This would be a great gotcha in the alternate universe where he only got one term

Let he who has not Impaled cast the first stone

“Well Doctor, I think it all started when I was a fry…”

Such a shape

Friendship ended with bristlemouth

Now pearlside is the fish I see when I fall asleep

Kinda sad to realise that this isn't the fish I've seen the most of now, that honour has definitely passed to Maurolicus

The world's first one-dimensional animal

"Threat display" oohh I'm so scared of the ribbon made of water that doesn't even have a proper anus

Ahhh that’s cool

I had an extensive debate yesterday over whether Transformers are limited to the speed of the vehicle they’re mimicking when they’re in disguise. I’m still not sure where I stand.

My brother in Christ you are made of peptides

I looove Psettodes, what a little monster

That second picture really gave me a jolt of excitement about heading to sea again next month. Like hell yeah I’m gonna get to stand out of the way behind the CTD rosette 😍😍

Ahh yeah good point about the frequency & opportunity to delay by an orbit if necessary. Want a nice longitudinally-wide landing site.

Also I’m aware of the context and the current developments but lol at the idea of China being squeamish about dropping stages on land.

Soyuz 7K-T No.39 - Wikipedia

Ok but aiming for the bit of Pacific controlled by the USSR there is very very tricky. Overshoot and you're going to hit Japan, a US ally, undershoot and you're going to end up in China (which they were very worried about at the time: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7...

A crested morwong, a stripy fish shaped like a long triangle with a very high, spiny dorsal fin on the forehead, sits on a sandy bottom. Credit: Erik Shlogl via FoA

If loving you is Morwong, then I don't wanna be Morright

Ok dude I am literally a marine biologist, I’m aware what the Pacific Ocean is!

Wait didn’t the Guardian allow GCHQ to drill their hard drives that one time

Mind you, she was in a Shenzhou - now I’m wondering why China don’t do water landings

Also, in general launches are often from the closest point to the Equator you can reach to maximise efficiency - for the USSR this was in Kazakhstan, which is further south than the Russian Coast so a launch due East would mean you’re unable to access water landing locations.

Mind you, the Kazakh step is also very, very big.

Tbf even one of the Mercury splashdowns nearly resulted in the astronaut drowning, there are definitely arguments against water landings generally.

Yeah I was also looking at Caspian, same issue (especially in early days when the navigation wasn't that good!)

GLOW WORMS IN LONG BEACH HOLY SHIT!!!

They had even more land when they were the USSR, which is why the capsules land in Kazakhstan lol

Yeah I mean closest they have to a beach resort is Sochi, a city best known for hosting the Winter Olympics!