The Open Water
I just finished watching the recent "Piranha 3D" but not in 3D at home, again, and I little bit understand the story. This is what's wrong with me, I need to always watch the movie twice in order to understand the story. It is always like; if I watch the movie for the first time, I will only adore how wonderful the visuals are done, how was it creatively created by the creative committee of the production team, etc etc, but if you ask me if I understand the story, I will only answer - 40% of it but the effects are good, it's impressive!
Back to where I were, the movie got me chilled for a bit but scared me to death when it comes to lakes and open waters!!.. I love water, and I love swimming, and watching this film for the second time gives me second thoughts on having a swimming session again on a near by fresh water lake/river. Although I don't really swim in lakes, rivers - yes, but lakes - never tried.
In the past years, there are lots of prehistoric fishes coming out of the depths and reminding us that "Hey! We're still freaking alive down here!!!"
One of those fishes is the Frilled Shark
Although there not that rare to the scientific eye, the Frilled shark is widely but patchy distributed through out the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. This deep sea predator is often called as the "living fossil". I'm not really surprised. Look at how he slithery looks! Those ghastly glares, wide mouth, and weird teeth; it shouts PRE-HISTORIC!! Not to mention his kind was in the face of our mother earth since the Late Cretaceous Period!!! And that was during the age of the Dinosaurs!!! at the Mesozoic Era!!!![source]
The other fish that I've known is the Coelacanth (took me a while to pronounce and type that)
Thought to be long extinct since the Cretaceous, Coelacanth is a reminder that there is Earth before humans. Since people discovered fossils of this fish, they thought that this fish is as dead as the dinosaurs, but they are dead wrong! At the year 1938 (hmmm.. quite prehistoric indeed) at the east coast of South Africa, they've found the FIRST Coelacanth!! And they were stunned! It's like seeing a real life zombie! with fins!! Ofcourse it's a good find for science but not too good for the Coelacanth because since their rediscovery, Coelacanth is on the list of endangered species.[source]
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| Coelacanth: Oh this one? This is my great great great great GREAT grand father!! |
Those are the two species that I know but there are lots of species in the Lazarus taxon to fondle about. Back to the Piranha movie, those two above this one survived 65 million years of invisibility from the human eye and the piranha featured in the film is waaaaaaaaaaaayyy younger that those two. If my ears didn't deceived me, from what I've heard from the fish expert from the movie, the piranha lived in the Cenozoic Era which is after the Mesozoic Era where the Frilled shark and the Coelacanth lived.
Anyways, because of this movie. I think I will stay away from the lake water for a while, until this fear of man-eating-sushi disappear or replaced by something else.. *sigh*
