The Evolution of Flying Fish 

Have you ever heard of the future is wild? Because many of the episodes contain flying fish called flish.

@@groundon462 ah yes, I watch every episode on RU-vid. I even watched the animated kids series where they reused the same creatures from the speculative document.

Saw these while fishing off Grand Bahama. Fascinating creatures. I didn't even care that I didn't catch anything.

afraid flight is too energy demanding for this to work, we might see an atmospheric breathing system of sorts emerging though- still unlikely as the more primitive hearts and nervous system would likely prohibit such transition

@@matushonko7223 Speaking of which... how do flying fish breathe while airborne? Do they trap some water inside and use that?

Well.... whether it is aero or hydro, they're both just fluid dynamics related topics. The main difference is the medium........ and uh, that one kills you if you don't go fast enough so you crash while the other kills you if you go too deep (contrary to popular belief, this is not because of the pressure crushing your submarine but because you're being devoured by Cthulhu #SciFacts).

For once.. How many times have you heard that?

Plenty of times actually, and it doesn't stop on fish either. I've heard of aerodynamic sharks (ok a type of fish), dolphins, seals, polar bears, tadpoles... you get the picture.

@@DGFTardin well, tbh Dumbo *IS* an aerodynamic elephant.... so who knows! Aerodynamic dolphins, bears, tadpoles... everything is possible!

If it starts out hydrodynamic, it can't be too far off from being aerodynamic. As an old boss would say, it's synergy.

I adore them. I used to love taking the ferry to Catalina island, watching the flying fish jump out if the boat's wake 💜

Totally agreed. I've yet to see them in real but I really want to, especially the smaller ones with those beautifully coloured fins.

Until they smack you in the face

He forgot about the japanese flying squid

As a child i thought a flying fish is made up and just some kind of fabulous creature, lol

Falling with extra steps.

Toy story reference

Philip Turner relax, it’s a joke mate 👍

Lord Frieza That’s a prerequisite to actual flight

we’re not aiming for the sea

Memes staler than my grandmas bread. That bread was in the Wehrmacht for gods sake.

Birds be like: YEET

Flish be like whoosh niqqa

Dolphin: On your left.

Birds be like : thats free realstate

Oh yeah! I forgot about flying squid!

@Please Complete All Fields My reaction exactly

I didn't know those were a thing seems like everything in the ocean is trying to learn how to fly. Although Manta Ray's are the best in my opinion.

holy shit THOSE THINGS EXIST!?

@@fang609 Mantine?

@ariannasv22 ; "According to the legend, carps that leap over a legendary waterfall, referred to as the Dragon Gate, are transformed into dragons." That is why Magikarp "evolves" into Gyarados in Pokemon.

Ibn4 flying fish being proto wyverns.

No one has seen James Cameron's Avatar??

There actually is a Dragonfish, it's a Relative of the Seahorse.

Mark Kestner I completely agree

No one is safe from extinction, birds don’t have to go extinct for fish to gain flight. Birds developed while pterosaurs were still thriving, and bats while birds were still flying. I see no reason for fish to begin flying in a couple million years and carve out new niches whether or not birds go extinct.

fly fish are distributed all over the tropics and even parts of subtropics, i think they have time to improve. i hope they develop an adaptation against avians, like upright eyes. they can already greatly sense predators ambushing bellow em, they just got to be weary of above.

Fish dont dominate the ocea, i see flying being predators in similar behaviur to dolphins except the glide above the water and going in to hunt or get prey

There are birds that don't fly well or at all, but rather do better in water.

@@Raison_d-etre There's also fish that have lungs and/or specialised gills that can survive for long periods of time out of water. With enough time and the right circumstances who knows what might evolve from the fish species that are around today.

First of all, if you watch 'The Future is Wild', they explain that Flish only evolved after the extinct of birds (also mentioned at 8:46). Second, modern oceanic ray-finned fish actually possess a swim bladder that were originally lungs in the freshwater ancestors of most of the modern forms, which were some of the few types of fish left over after the Late Devonian Mass Extinction obliterated the gigantic placoderms, which lacked primitive lungs. In many ray-finned fish today, such as the tarpon, this organ has been re-adapted to be used by them as a simple lung too. Also, many species of eel, like the electric eel, are able to make forays onto the land because their mouths and gums are highly vascularized, with lots of blood vessels quite close to the external environment. Additionally, some fish can breathe air by absorbing it through their skin, and a few have even evolved a labyrinthine system of ducts of gulp air. Third, I would argue that the fins of fish can be easily adapted to become highly dextrous, allowing the whole organ to change shape, as would be required for flight. Examples of this range to the modern frogfish to the prehistoric Tiktaalik, which could literally use its fins to do a push-up. Walking catfish can even use their fins to help them wriggle across dry land. By improving the dexterity of their fins, creatures like flying fish could use their gliding to not only escape predators better, but also to sneak on prey from above. Fourth, the book version of 'The Future is Wild' details that Flish have specialized oils lighter-than-water oils (also possessed by sharks) in their bodies along with specialized hollow scales that allow them to float in between glides. Fifth, if the fish evolved in shallow water, perhaps with a lower oxygen content, that filled dramatically with great expanses of water at one time of year and then become muddy and treacherous at another time of the year, it could kill two birds with one stone by developing stronger fins to maneuver through these tighter conditions but also glide when water levels are higher. This could be particularly important in an environment like that that is described in 'The Future is Wild' as being where Flish evolved, after a great future mass extinction killed off almost all life. In these sheltered environments, perhaps mangrove swamps or analogous regions, opportunists could gain a foothold. This also ties in some things the video mentions at about 9:15.

@@andrewkawam2603 I didn't argue it's impossible, just significantly less likely compared to terrestrial animals. Happened three times with vertebrates alone after all.

@@andrewkawam2603 there is also a problem that if birds did kick the bucket, this leaves the skies free for insects and bats to take over. Flying sea creatures would also be more free to take to the skies but they won't be the only ones.

Yeah can you do ALL speculative zoology videos?

We're planning to! :)

@@BenGThomas Maybe flying anomalocarids, flying butterfly 'shrimp' LOL?

@@BenGThomas it would be cool if there were some interplanetary speculative zoology!

Ooh, do a video on Serina, the world of birds

Like I said I did find some conflicting sources concerning their behaviours, so it's interesting to know that they are actually false anyway. Thank you for correcting me, and here's the source I found stating they're 'ballistic jumpers': www.fishbase.se/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?ID=2075&AT=freshwater+butterflyfish

I've been on a ferry (small vehicle ferry) in the Philippines between Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental, and seen flying fish flying out from in front of the boat and directly away, almost all in approx 30 degree spread aligned with the boat's direction. Looked like escape. Couldn't see any insects on the surface or in the air.

@@williamchamberlain2263 this post is about the butterfly fish not the marine flying fish.

Yeahh butterfly fish is a freshwater fish.

And flying fish actually evolved to avoid predators through flying, butterfly fish have a limited surface area thats why they use their wings to catch prey not to mention their habitat are full of insects, i dont think ocean have alot of insects.

Yeah along with the terrestrial octopuses, the bird fish were some of the coolest speculative evolutions ever

David King that show definitely has a cephalopod bias.

No, it's not.

@@Raison_d-etre I know it's a joke...

Reason as in skipping on water

The joke was they skipped a bunch of step and went straight to flying.

@@Raison_d-etre you're what happens when the best sperm doesnt fertilize the egg.

At some point definitely. I have to do a video on them since they're my favourite group of dinosaurs! :)

I don't think it has scales tho. So it's haram. You're probably not a Muslim but I though that would be an interesting fact.

It has scales.Also I don't think eating bird meat is haram.In our country we drink raw bird eggs for breakfast and don't bat an eye.

Tf are you Chinese?

@@Moses_VII well your comments around a year old, but reading it made me Google Haram, so that's new and interesting to me

Ahh now a days people dont care if the animal is rare or exotic or dangerous tjey just eat whatever they see

"Wins"

Well there are actually plenty of air-breathing fish so I doubt that that's necessary

Gary Meaney That is true but for these fish there seems to be not that much of anatural selection factor that would require them to suddenly evolve air breathing (unless there is, do tell me) I feel like if they do evolve powered flight, there’d be a period where they develop to be flying pseudo-amphibians, where water is necessary for breathing and breeding, perhaps they won’t be able to stray to far away from the water. Then I’m assuming evolution will take its course and air breathing lineages will evolve.

The thing is, marine mammels haven't kept breathing because they can't re-evolve gills. They've done it because breathing air is an advantage for them. They'd loose lots of heat through gills, and they'd be restricted to only as much oxygen as is disolved in the water. Air breathing allows even large mammels with energetic lifestyles to live in cold waters with limited oxygen, and be more energetic in general. Flish would gain nothing by keeping gills on the other hand, and stand to gain a lot by evolving lungs. Since the evolution of lungs by fish has occured more than once, we should expect flish to do so once they start spending a lot of time out of the water. In fact, air breathing is probably neccassary to provide enough oxygen for sustained powered flight.

I mean flying would actually be a pretty good way to avoid conventional human hunting methods like trawling and net based hunting

@Big Bill O'Reilly what?

@Big Bill O'Reilly dude lay off the drugs

Breath is a noun, breathe is a verb

This

@AllSeeingEye ofGod What's it like to be on the losing side of an argument that was over 150 years ago?

I'd like an episode about it too!

But were already breathing air. To evolve flight, you got to have an efficient breathing system.

No they were flapping first. So were pterosaurs and bats. Gliders stay gliders.

@Anzu Wylei, Just a dino guy Beating wings, rather than through gliding phase, powered flight might occur in ground-bound theropod lineage. So-called "ground-up" hypothesis has addressed the issue very strongly recently. More convincing.

Thank you for the suggestion! :)

You just replaced the question lol

Those are some very cool ideas! A planet/moon filled with flying fish descendants would be incredible to see! :D

TheSmurfyMixels Nope,the Great Western Canadian Prairie Tyrannosaur should be done first because it’s much bigger.

Size doesn’t matter

@@richardputz3233 I'd argue the smaller variant would be more interesting because we can see the workings of selective pressure on a large animal to be *smaller* as a result of lower/smaller prey availability.

Thanks! :D

Thanks, I'm glad to know! :)

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