Let's kick things off on this solstice with the Common Fangtooth (Anoplogaster cornuta)! These guys have a super black pigment that absorbs almost all light, to stay hidden in some of the darkest depths of the sea. 📸Mark Norman, Karen Osborn, Dante Fenolio

Today's fish is the electric Eclipse Butterflyfish (Chaetodon bennetti)! Scroll through a whole search page of these guys, and you'll see just how effective the eyespot is :o They mainly nibble on live coral! 📸Bernard Picton, J. Johnson, Ian Shaw

Today's fish is... the Pope? No, not the one in Vatican City, a fish more commonly known as the Eurasian Ruffe (Gymnocephalus cernua)! They're native to Europe, but have been introduced to the Great Lakes, reproducing faster than natives. 📸Tiit Hunt, Jack Perks, Christa Rohrbach

Today's fish is the Snowflake Moray (Echidna nebulosa)! Most places in the U.S. have seen a crazy winter storm the last couple of days, so the name seems appropriate :) These guys have small, blunt teeth to crush crustaceans. 📸Scubaluna, Andaman, Whit Comberd

Merry Christmas! Of course today's fish is the Christmas Darter (Etheostoma hopkinsi), named for its red and green stripes. I hope everyone is having a calm, warm, and cozy Christmas :) 📸Elizabeth Gooding, Brian Wulker, Michael Wolfe

Today's fish is the Clown Knifefish (Chitala ornata)! Their long, flat anal fin gives them the distinctive sharp look that earned their name. They're native to Indochina, but are invasive in Florida and some areas of southeast Asia. 📸Zachary Randall, Unknown, Jan Stefka

Today's fishes are the Pocket Sharks (Mollisquama), named for a small gland behind the pectoral fins! The purpose of the gland is unknown, but may be for bioluminescence. The name also fits because they're pocket sized! 📸Michael Doosey, Grace et al. 2015, John McCusker

Today's fish is the Piper Gurnard (Trigla lyra)! Gurnards are sound-producing, creating grunting noises by drumming their swim bladders. In fact, the name gurnard is an onomatopoeia for the croak they make when caught! 📸A. M. Arias, AAMP, Unknown

Today's fish is the Common Dragonet (Callionymus lyra)! These fish have an elaborate courtship display, where the male displays his colors and opens his mouth and the female responds. 📸Unknown, Hans Hillewaert, Peter Verhoog

Today's fish is the Wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri)!! They are among some of the fastest fish, able to reach speeds of 60mph. They use their speed and razor-sharp teeth to catch fish and cephalopods! 📸OceanBlueFishing, Blue Planet Archive, Unknown

Happy New Year's Eve! Today's fish is one described in 2022, Poecilocharax callipterus! Discovered in Brazil, this is the first new species from its family in 57 years :) In the same expedition, another new species was found! 📸Willian Ohara, Murilo Pastana, & Priscila Camelier

It's 2023, but I'm reflecting on a fish we won't be entering the new year with. The Chinese Paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) was officially declared extinct by the IUCN in 2022, although they've been functionally extinct for much longer :( 📸Liu Chen Han, Qiwei Wei, WikiCommons

Today's fish is the Banded Angelfish (Apolemichthys arcuatus)! They're found in reefs in the Hawaiian and Johnson Islands, and mainly feed on sponges! 📸David Rolla, Sanjay Joshi

Today's fish is the European Bitterling (Rhodeus amarus)! These fish have a clever parenting hack: let mussels do the work! Females use an ovipositor to deposit eggs within a mussel, where they are protected from predation! 📸Valeronio, Blickwinkel

Today's fish is the Spotted Handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus)! These cuties live only in an estuary in Tanzania and are threatened by invasive seastars, which feed on their eggs and alter spawning substrate. 📸CSIRO, Mark Green, Emma Flukes

Today's fish is the Planehead Filefish (Stephanolepis hispidus)! These rhombus shaped fish are not great swimmers. Their small, awkward fins lead to them floating among seagrass facing down! 📸Seabird McKeon, Jesse Bissette, Diego Delso

Snorkel enthusiasts on Twitter! I'm going to be doing some fieldwork in Hawai'i next week and would love to be able to take photos underwater of reef fishes. How good are those Kodak/Fujifilm disposables? Can they survive the airport xray? Hoping to share photos on here!

Just landed in Hawai'i for a couple weeks of fieldwork! FOTD will be sparse. Hoping to share some fish I see while snorkeling! :)

A very wormy welcome to Connor Whalen and Gabby Commisso, who will join the Wood Lab as graduate students in Fall 2023! Both will be part of our NSF CAREER-funded historical ecology project: chelsealwood.com/research/histo…

Happy pride month to other queer folks in STEM/ecology!! I'm proud to be the person a younger Gabby always wished to see being a real scientist & researcher 🌈