Neon pike

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Mike B
Mike B's picture
Neon pike
<p>This the front cover and story from our paper in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories today. I&#39;m very envious of this guy.</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz229/salvelinus2003/yk082615_Page_01_zpsm6lms6e4.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 927px;" /><img alt="" src="http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz229/salvelinus2003/Pages%20from%20yk082615-2_zpsu63bmqg6.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 927px;" /></p>
andy
andy's picture
Cool!

Looks like a bowfin-pike.  A Pikefin.  Northern Grinnel pike.  Dogpike?  Super neat.

drawer.bli
drawer.bli's picture
Whaaaaaaaaaat that pike is aw

Whaaaaaaaaaat that pike is awesome! Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime catch.

Divemaster
Divemaster's picture
That's an amazing catch! Alwa

That's an amazing catch! Always nice to get a fish with weird coloration :)

Eli
Eli's picture
Weird...

pride pike

Eli

 

 

Hengelaar
Hengelaar's picture
Eeesh, lookadat critter! Weir

Eeesh, lookadat critter!

Weird and cool.

Fishn sure is neat

the bearded angler
the bearded angler's picture
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/neon-green-pike-s-colour-is-adaptation-not-mutation-experts-say-1.3206956

Mike B
Mike B's picture
Not sure I fully agree with t

Not sure I fully agree with the conclusions reached in this story. The newspaper I work for talked to two of the most knowledgable fish biologists in town and they refused to offer a definitive cause. Fish do change colours to match their environment -- we've had discussions on this in an earlier post -- and it makes sense that  fish from dark water will be dark and pale fish will be found in milky water but if these pike are turning green to be more effective predators that does not explain the bright green livers and other organs being found in other pike that didn't have green skins.

And I find the anology between the white bucket and the minnows put into it turning pale as proof of fishing adapt to their environment kind of silly. Duh, anyone who's brought aquarium fish home from the pet store will note how pale they get -- in a white container or otherwise. That's not environmental adaptation, that's stress.

Some commentators to that CBC story have pointed out the possibility of this pigment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biliverdin being present in some of these fish. I'm starting to wonder about that.

mike b

Outdoors4life
Outdoors4life's picture
I have a blue bucket!

With my blue bucket my minnows get darker. When I use a white bucket they turn pale. 

I used to have half my fish tank dark color and the other light. The fish would match they area. 

 

The neon green I do not know but I disagree that minnows only turn pale from stress.

It is all perspective!

Acer Home Inspections

waxworm2
Interesting observations abou
Interesting observations about the livers and other internal organs, Mike! Being strictly a catch and release angler, I've never opened one up, but has anyone here ever seen bright green or blue innards in bowfin with the same bright blue and green external colour phase? I've caught bright green and blue fins in very murky, opaque, weedless water over a muddy bottom, outside of spawning season. Often withIn this small geographical area (1/2 mile) most of the fins have no blue or green colour at all, and the few that do don't seem to follow any defining pattern like only males or females, or only juveniles or mature adults. It does makes me wonder if or how much water chemistry, specifically agricultural or industrial runoff, affects fish pigmentation. The Wikipedia article Mike posted a link to suggested higher levels of biliverdin in fish can protect against cell damage from toxins in their local environment, natural or synthetic (human made). Very interesting stuff!
krazyk
krazyk's picture
I know there was a big stink

I know there was a big stink on an ice fishing website last year about a guy who caught a 'blue chain pickerel'... its mouth was a blue tint on the inside and so was all of its meat. I know the guy ate it and others freaked out that he ate it claiming it was most likely some kind of chemical in its body.

Chain Pickerel: All the bad assery of a Northern Pike wrapped up in a smaller, prettier package.

Mike B
Mike B's picture
Perhaps I was being a bit too

Perhaps I was being a bit too strident there. As I said earlier in the post, fish do changer color to match their environment. I just found the fish in the bait bucket anology a bit sloppy. A bait bucket is is usually not a very pleasant place -- especially when one is "catching" the bait fish and then dumping them into the bucket -- and when fish are sloshing around stress does cause them to go pale regardless of the background so to me not the best example to use to describe how chromatosphores work in fish.

mike b