Ever accidentally swallowed a fish bone? Not the best feeling. Well this isn’t an issue when eating a needlefish, because just like aliens (probably) they have bright greeny blue bones.

You still might swallow one, but there’ll be no sympathy from me. I mean they’re green bones against white flesh; you should be able to spot them.

So what exactly is a needlefish? Also commonly called a garfish, scientific name (Belone belone), they’re an excellent eating fish found in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean seas.

Their green skeletons are caused by a pigment called Biliverdin.

With long thin bodies ending in a piercing beak and sharp teeth, they really look like a needle with fins. A really long, terrifying needle considering they can reach up to 1.2m in length and cause deeper and more damaging stabs and jabs.

Needlefish swim fast, up to 60km/h, and have a habitat of leaping out of the water, especially towards light. Unfortunately this has repeatedly led to fisherman, surfers, canoers and even windsurfers crossing with a needlefish’s hurtling path and becoming punctured by their pointed jaws.

There’s even a sad report of a pregnant dolphin being killed from a needlefish stab wound to the lung.

Another oddity of the needlefish is the shape of their jaws as juveniles. While the adults have a perfectly pointed mouth, young fish have a stumped upper jaw, like it’s just been snapped off.

This is most likely due to food availability with the ‘half beak’ form in juveniles suitable for their more plankton heavy diet and the ‘needle beak’ form more suitable for the fish heavy diet adopted by the adults.

So all the way from their green insides to their sharp exterior, these pointy poissons are definitely odd and definitely deserve their place here on odd organisms.

 References

Boughton, D. A., Collette, B. B., & McCune, A. R. (1991). Heterochrony in jaw morphology of needlefishes (Teleostei: Belonidae). Systematic Biology, 40(3), 329-354.

Jüttner, F., Stiesch, M., & Ternes, W. (2013). Biliverdin: the blue-green pigment in the bones of the garfish (Belone belone) and eelpout (Zoarces viviparus).European Food Research and Technology, 236(6), 943-953.

Arronte, J. C., Pis-Millan, J. A., & Perez, C. (2005). Injury to an Atlantic White-Sided Dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) Caused by Needlefish Impalement.Aquatic Mammals, 31(2), 184-186.

Rouvillain, J. L., Donica, A., Gane, C., Zekhnini, C., Garron, E., & Uzel, A. P. (2013). Windsurfing hazard caused by needlefish. European Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery & Traumatology, 23(2), 295-297.