A large dorado: a fish with an unusual appearance and a terrible character (5 photos)
Where else but in the seas and oceans of the earth can you meet a creature that has the appearance of Mona Lisa and the character of an evil yard dog. Where else but here does it become more and more interesting with each meter passed?
It is here, at a depth of up to 100 m, that our guest today lives, whose name is like Laricheva Manya from the feature film "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed", and all because, like Manya, she has several nicknames.
So, meet the golden mackerel, also known as the big dolphin, also known as the golden dorado, also known as mahi-mahi, or ichthyologists simply call it Coryphaena hippurus.
Our guest lives as befits all beautiful fish in the tropics. But unlike most of its tropical relatives, it has unusual external data in the form of a fish without a head, and that is exactly what it looks like and it is not small in size.
It can grow more than 2 m in length and weigh over 70 kg, the largest of which was 2.1 m long and weighed 76 kg. The body is flattened from the sides and is framed by a long dorsal fin consisting of 56-58 soft rays. Although the fish looks as if its head was cut off, it still has a head, and a very large one. Moreover, you can tell by it whether it is a girl or a boy. The female has a more sloping forehead, and the male is almost vertical, in addition, during the breeding season, a small bony ridge grows on it.
In addition to its headless appearance, it has an amazing body color, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. In most cases, it is green-yellow with shimmers of all the colors of the rainbow. The dorsal fin is a continuation of the color scheme and has a dark green color.
Despite the amazing color of the scales, our guest is a commercial fish in many Asian countries, where it is caught with trawls and longlines. According to gourmets from the land of the rising sun, the meat of the golden mackerel is very tender and pleasant when raw. And in order not to get poisoned and find out whether the carcass is freshly caught. You just need to look at it, if the fish has a dull color of scales, it means that it was caught a long time ago.
If Asians don't catch it and eat it as a delicacy, the fish will live only 4 years, during which time it reaches such a size. And to achieve this, it actively eats its smaller brethren, crabs, squids and other prey that it meets on its way. And it will tear it apart like a dog.