For those that have seen those pictures of fish claimed to have been washed
up by the tsunami, this was sent out to everyone at my laboratory.


________________________________________
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Ash Bullard
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 10:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [GCRL-all] fish photos- tsunami hoax

TSUNAMI FISH HOAX- once and for all!

In case some of you haven’t seen them, there is a picture array of deep
water fishes circulating around the internet.  The caption states that the
fishes were washed ashore by the tsunami.

Did anyone else think this sounded, well, “fishy”?  I suspected so.

I queried Dominique Dagit (Associate Curator of Ichthyology at The Academy
of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia) about the alleged fish photos from the
tsunami.  She specializes in chimaera taxonomy and systematics.  That a
tsunami could “wash ashore” deep-water fishes is rather absurd, I’m sure we
all agree (everyone has had Coastal Processes, right?), since the effects of
such a wave would be very slight in deep water.

Anyway, Dominique saw the same photos over 8 months ago.  The truth is that
the photos ARE NOT from the tsunami, but from the NORFANZ research cruise
(http://www.oceans.gov.au/norfanz/).  They were looking at the fauna of sea
mounts, some really neat stuff.

You can view the rest of the fish photos from the cruise (as well as geeky
shots of fish people holding fish) at
http://www.oceans.gov.au/norfanz/library.htm.

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