Elephant Fish – Real or Hoaxed?

ElephantFish01This picture has been circulating on Facebook recently and it caught my eye because it’s so colorful and clever. But it’s definitely a hoax, albeit a cute one. But it got me thinking … could there be such a real thing?

 

 

Oh yes there is! In February of 2009, National Geographic reported the discovery of this previously unknown (to Western science) Freshwater Elephant Fish (photo below right). It lives in the fresh waters of the Congo and they believe it uses its snout to sift through the silt on the river bottom for food.

ElephantFishCongo03Fish biologist Melanie Stiassny said, “The fast currents and raucous rapids of the lower river create physical barriers that smaller fish cannot cross.” The result is that these natural barriers confine populations of fish that over time, evolve into their own new species or sub-species.

Sometimes these unique species are found just a few hundred meters (few hundred yards) apart from each other.

Biologist Stiassny collected DNA samples from this fish and others so she and her team can determine exactly how many new species they’ve discovered during their 2008 Congo River expedition.

This elephant fish, the real deal, is just one amazing treasure found in the second longest river in Africa, on a continent that spawned the big elephants that we know and love today.

ElephantFishAussie02On the other side of the world lives another fish the locals call an elephant fish, or sometimes, the Silver Trumpeter, or Whitefish. This fish lives off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand in the deep dark waters of the Pacific. People generally see them when they come into the shallow bays along the coast to lay their eggs once a year. It certainly has a funny proboscis, doesn’t it?

Isn’t life amazing?  Til the next time!

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13 comments

  1. That little yellow guy is sooo cute! I wish I had one in my HA tanks. lol The real one is really strange. Makes you wonder if our modern day elephants started out like that in the cambrianic period.

  2. Those elephant fish have been known of for longer than 2009 because in 2007 I had them in my fish tank!!!

    • Thank you for saving the day with sanity.

      “There are only two possibilities as to how life arose; one is spontaneous generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God, there is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one possible conclusion, that life arose as a creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”
      (Dr. George Wald, evolutionist, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University at Harvard, Nobel Prize winner in Biology.)

      • You may want to rethink that again. Choosing not to believe leads me to think that deep down you know otherwise. I pray you find Him now before it is too late to change your mind.

        • Ethel, bless you. I would love to share my testimony with you some time. Mark 5:19, Psalm 42:5 and Jeremiah 17:14 come to mind.

          I was just agreeing with the above comment, showing plainly, by their own obvious position, the insanity and willful ignorance that is inescapably expressed in the evolutionist\materialist\humanist (satanist) worldview. They cannot reach their position through a greater abundance of knowledge or facts and especially not through their selfish pride.

          They just simply do not want there to be a god, especially the one true living God as is revealed in the Holy Bible. Evolutionists are atheists who have at last found one reason under the sun to not be proven to be fools for saying there is no god, so this is why they have deified Darwin and have exalted the impossible theory of evolution. Might as well have faith in something more irrational and impossible than the God of the bible. There is great desperation in being an atheist and an anti-theist and agnostics just aren’t trying hard enough.

          We are all taught to believe in evolution and resistance is severely punished. You are not allowed to believe anything else and it is a theory that scars the minds of so many. No one can defend the theory as a result of being forcefully taught it. We simply are taught to believe in it. It fatally suppresses fundamental human intuition to believe in this wild theory. I know there would be more scientists, artists and musicians if this great foolishness were put away from the “education” system. We are ingrained into obedience and memorization as if school were no more than a plastic conveyor belt within an oppressive factory.

  3. Evolution deniers, please just shut up and let people appreciate the wonder of nature. This is a science article, so kindly quit preaching and try reading another book.

    • Did the fish you had look like the yellow one with the elephant’s trunk? Or are you referring to the new species found in the Congo by the scientists? … Susan (Curator of CryptoVille)

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