Sea robins use leg-like fins to taste, navigate seafloor, researchers discover | Hacker News Reader

Sea robins use leg-like fins to taste, navigate seafloor, researchers discover

phys.org

54 pointswglb8 comments

The latest episode of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks had a very excellent segment on this odd creature (amongst other topics). It's a fantastic weekly science show available as a podcast.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/sep-28-plastic-we-need-to-un...

Sea robins are the bane of my existence. I just try to make an honest living [0] catching flounder and (hopefully!) stripers and these bums keep eating the bait and making their stupid noises. AT LEAST FIGHT WHEN I HAVE YOU ON THE LINE YOU LAZY FISH

[0] Not really my living don't worry...

I heard that they're tasty. Or at least that's what the dude in the boat passing by said when I held one up and yelled, "do you know what this is?"

They are not bad to eat, but not worth the effort to clean. Very little usable meat in the tail, and there is a double row of bones you have to filet out. And the meat is kind of translucent green until you cook it, then it turns white. But so do other fish like lingcod and some rockfish.

You also need to watch out for the spines on their back, they're venomous. I don't think it's super poisonous but it'll not be pleasant to get poked by one.

Super pedantic note, venemous and poisonous are not the same thing. It's possible to eat/drink venom and not be poisoned, so long as it does not enter your bloodstream through a cut or ulcer.

And yes, been poked by a sea robin many a time, if they get you deeply your whole hand will swell up.

And speaking of poisonous sea life, growing up, we used to catch and cook pufferfish tails on a regular basis. Delicious deep fried. The variety we had (northern puffers, very cute) were not as toxic as the species used for Fugu but still has poisons in the skin and organs. No one ever taught us to avoid the organs or that they were toxic, but I seem to have survived 50 spins around the sun without adverse impact.

https://www.easthamptonstar.com/archive/one-oddest-and-tasti...

This is known since decades so, what adds the new discovery exactly?

I don't know. Articles with these kinds of headlines don't seem to even try to justify themselves anymore.

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