thread: About Slogs...
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  #28  
02-26-2009, 08:20 PM
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Bullet Magnet
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: Greatish Britain
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Look at this:




This is Macropinna microstoma, a deep-sea fish with barrel-shaped eyes in order to take best advantage of the dim light- they're more like telescopes than eyes. They swivel around on pivots, staring straight up or straight ahead. Those two bumps above its mouth are nostrils. What's more: these eyes are entirely within their own head. Their skull is transparent, a protective observatory to keep its eyes out of harm's way. This is a fish with a window for a head.

Weird? Yes. Odd? Certainly. Stranger than fiction? God damn. And yet it is perfectly believable and scientifically accurate because it is REAL. Plausibility need not and does not deny ultimate oddness.
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