Hatchetfish Are Watching You
Off the top of my head, I can rattle off a handful of reasons that hatchetfish have started to interest me lately: the fact that they’re bioluminescent (would that only I could make random parts of my body glow at will), that they travel in migratory nocturnal packs that aren’t so much schools as gangs, that they are shaped like…well, hatchets. That’s all pretty good on its own but even better is the fact that, head on, they seem to photograph like desperate, lonely souls trapped in boundless, watery purgatories. Other face-forward images of these fish I’ve found have the same eerie, pleading quality to them. It’s just a striking look on so many levels, from the starkness of what’s featured in the surrounding darkness to the sadness—even grief—that seems to stretch across their faces. Nature is the coolest weirdo ever.
