Oyster toadfish
Opsanus tau
— Where the name comes from
Tau is the Greek letter T, and refers to a dark T-shaped mark on the animal’s back. Opsanus is a nineteenth-century coinage of uncertain reading. The order is the Batrachoidiformes, “frog-shaped”, and the common name across half the world points the same way: broad mouth, flat head, warty skin.
— Facts
- Group
- Fish · Actinopterygii · Chondrichthyes
- Order
- Toadfishes
- Habitat
- Oyster beds, shell banks, wrecks, harbours
- Range
- The Atlantic coast of North America, from Cape Cod to Florida
- Size
- 25–38 cm, 200–500 g
- Diet
- Crabs, molluscs, shrimp, small fish
- Lifespan
- 12 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It survives polluted, oxygen-poor water that kills every other fish.
- 02
It works into jars, pipes and cans and spawns inside them.
- 03
The male guards the eggs glued to the roof of his den.
— What sets it apart
It sings with its swim bladder, and the muscles that vibrate it are the fastest known in any vertebrate: they contract up to two hundred times a second, five times faster than the wing muscles of a hummingbird. The males’ spring call is a continuous hum audible through a boat’s hull. For the same reason this fish has been to space: its balance organs, very like ours, have been studied in orbit on several Shuttle missions.
