it’s been so hot outside lately, i’ve been staying inside a little more than i probably should, and i ended up going down a YouTube rabbit hole… i thought some of what i came across might be interesting to some of the folks here – so i thought i’d share a few places where “the algorithm” has sent me recently.
have you found some corner of YouTube that you think might be interesting for the community here? please share!
– warning: most of the videos noted below involve carnivory –
from a freediving spearfisherman on a remote Japanese island who catches, prepares, and eats various sea creatures:
(as a side note, some of these YouTubers seem like they would make really excellent observers and identifiers. i saw that one of them even made an iNaturalist account but never really used it.)
I love the FishLocker youtube channel! You should check out more of his rock/tidepool exploration videos. One can easily tell he is passionate and knowledgable about such ecosystems, and its like you are watching someone go inatting. I wonder if he has an account…
Still watching the first one. Fascinating. I never knew about that pocket for the pelvic fins.
– Don’t read this part if you are squeamish –
Reminds me of marine fish field classes back in college. One day we tied up to an oil rig pump station and caught our own fish to dissect back at the lab. I finally caught something as we were about to head back, a 50lb black drum. That one went back in the water. I don’t recall what I end up dissecting but I got nominated to clean up the bloody ice chest. Another student had caught a small bonito (now that I think about it, I think it was a shipjack tuna, also known as a bonito, rather than an Atlantic bonito) which bled a lot even before being dissected (I guess it swallowed the hook). Looking at all that coagulated blood in the sailfish, probably a good thing he was not dealing with a super fresh fish.
Thanks for the list. I will check it out. It has been hot and rainy here in NE Ohio, too. Not much chance for finding dragonflies/damselflies. I found this video on YouTube. I was looking through that site because I can’t go out much, either. It is extreme slow motion moth flight. They look like stuffed animals.
I’ve definitely gone down some weird rabbit holes watching videos related to stuff from iNat haha.
Last summer I was having a lot of trouble catching cicadas, so I watched videos of people all around the world catching them. Interesting to see the different techniques and what people do with them after catching them… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLimWNWljMrtcGiCBhVdnTWL3btOR6JuK4
After I saw this video documenting the hobby of goby fishing and eating in Tokyo, I did a similar thing watching videos of people catching or eating gobies in different places: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLimWNWljMrteYt--JW19GNKRJzlY-tPTD
I just found it amusing people putting so much effort into such small fish. It did get me wondering about eating invasive Round Gobies in the Great Lakes, but I contacted the Ontario Ministry of the Environment about it and they said due to elevated levels of PCBs they recommend that healthy adults eat no more than 2 meals a month (a “meal” being 227 grams), and everyone else not eat any. I thought that was weird considering the guidelines say it’s fine to eat 8-16 meals of Smallmouth Bass (varying by person and size of fish) in my area and their diet is dominated by gobies, but maybe something limits bioaccumulation there… 200 grams of gobies would still be a decent amount though!
The species of goby they target in Tokyo is an invasive species in California, not sure if they’re safe to eat there. :P
I saw that one the other day as well! Crazy that they just look like chaotic blurs with the naked eye, but look almost like giant fuzzy elegant flapping birds in slow motion.
I follow a few microfishing enthusiasts (in USA) on Instagram. They all do catch and release. They are in it for the challenge and keep lifelists of the species they’ve caught.
@ken_ohio – i love the Ant Lab videos. after watching a bunch of slow-mo flight videos of various insects, i’m starting to watch some of their ant-specific videos:
That fungi movie by Stephen Axford and Cath Marciniak is fantastic.
It was posted in another thread in this forum a few weeks ago.
And, the one about the fungi and the fire is really good, too.
I’m glad you posted it again. I can save the link.
Totally agree about SA’s fungi fest. The timelapse features are staggeringly impressive.
All the National Moth Week activities at the end of July have produced a number of mothing videos. I compiled a series of my own (Moth Magic) for NMW, available on YT’s Moth Week channel . . . the 5 part series is an updated screen adaptation of an introductory presentation to a one or two day “practical moth recording” workshop I run. enjoy.
Yeah, he’s a little crass sometimes, but it fits my sense of humor, and dude is a fantastic botanist that actually does a really good job explaining the differences between different plant families, and will occasionally guest spot other experts in their fields.
https://www.youtube.com/@LearnYourLand another good one - he’s in Pennsylvania and tends to focus on fungi, plants, and foragables, along with common poisonous species for the area.
When I lived in Hawaii, moray eels were caught, bright to the surface, prepped and eaten right on the boat, minutes old.
The parts the eel not used were returned to the ocean where the fish gobbled them up in seconds.
I loved watching the divers catch their meal and enjoy it immediately.
