"They're very colourful, very charismatic," Skelton said. When they get aggressive with each other - which they often do - they open their unusually wide jaws, revealing two rows of pointy teeth. They're native to the Pacific ocean, and live mostly off the coast of California.
Sarcastic fringeheads, or Neoclinus blanchardi, are small and feisty saltwater fish with bluish-purple scales, buggy eyes and bright pink and yellow lips. WATCH | Sarcastic fringeheads open their large mouths: Skelton co-authored a study about the male mouth-offs, which was published this month in the journal Ecology. So it's basically showing, 'Hey, I'm really big. "The point of the display, we can determine, is to deter physical combat. "They tend to live in rocky crevices or sometimes empty shells, and to protect these shelters and to retain them, they will often give this agonistic display by opening their mouth and trying to show the width and size of their mouth," University of California San Diego biologist Zach Skelton told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. Sometimes, the colourful reef-dwellers will fight over territory, smashing their gaping maws together in what looks like a violent kissing contest.īut most of the time, if one fish's lips are big enough to strike fear into his challenger's heart, that's enough to prevent a physical altercation.
When male sarcastic fringeheads get into a conflict, the spoils of war tend to go to the fish with the biggest mouth. As It Happens 5:57 These colourful fish use their massive mouths to protect their love dens
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