[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: So hello and welcome.
And a special welcome to our
guests today, Helen Scales
and Aaron John Gregory.
Helen Scales is a British
marine biologist, a broadcaster,
and writer.
Professor Scales swam
all the way over here
from Cambridge University,
where she teaches marine biology
and science writing, serves
as scientific advisor
to the marine conservation
charity Sea Changers.
You may know her from
her BBC Radio programs,
such as "Inside Science,"
"Shared Planet," "Outlook,"
and "Weekend."
Her previous books
include "Spirals
in Time," "The Secret
Life and Curious
Afterlife of Seashells,"
and "Poseidon's Steed
the Story of Seahorses
from Myth to Reality."
Her new book, "Eye of
the Shoal" is an attempt
to unhitch fish from
their reputation
as slimy, simple-minded
creatures,
and reveal their mesmerizing
and complex lives.
The Illustrator of the
book is Aaron John Gregory.
In addition to this book,
Aaron's illustration work
includes "Godzilla Rage
Across Time," by IDW Comics,
"Furry Logic the Physics
of Animal Life," and a book
for the Smithsonian called
"Narwhal Revealing an Arctic
Legend" which accompanied
the recent exhibit in DC.
And Aaron also was the
illustrator for one
of Helen's previous books.
So, I'll turn it over to you.
Thank you very much.
HELEN SCALES: Thank
you very much.
Thank you so much for
that lovely introduction.
And thank you all for
coming along this afternoon
and for anyone who's
listening online.
My name is Helen Scales and,
yeah, I'm a marine biologist.
And just to clear things
up right from the start,
I often do get
asked about my name.
And just to be clear,
it is my real name.
But I'm not the only marine
biologist with a cool name.
I have a couple of
other favorites.
There's Teddy Gill.
He was an American ichthyologist
about 100 years ago.
This guy's still around,
Steven Haddock, actually
is nearby where we are now in
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute.
He studies jellyfish, as
you can see on his T-shirt.
And this is one of my absolute
favorite marine biologists,
Marie Fish.
We're going to come
back to her later.
It's a real pleasure
to be here today,
especially because this
is the first opportunity
I've had to appear alongside
Aaron John Gregory, who
has become a dear friend.
But basically, we've
been working together
for a couple of years
now on my books.
He's been bringing to life
these wonderful creatures that I
write about.
So today is the
first opportunity
we've had to actually
appear together
and to talk about our different
sides of this collaboration.
So what we're going to do is
I'm going to introduce the book,
tell you a little bit about
what I've written about,
go into a few of
the stories I tell.
And then we're going to hear
from AJ about what he does
to produce beautiful artwork.
I should go back to that
first slide actually.
Because this is an
image that, sadly, we
were going to have on the front
and the back cover of the book.
This is the front cover.
This was going to be the back
cover, which is very beautiful.
He also has a T-shirt of it.
But my publishers
insisted on putting words
on the back of my book
instead of beautiful pictures.
So this is what should
have looked like.
So here we go.
So, yeah, "Eye of the Shoal--
the Fishwatcher's Guide to Life,
the Oceans, and Everything."
The idea behind
the book really is
to bring to life this group
of animals that I think kind
of get a bit of a raw deal.
They inhabit the oceans
which is the biggest living
space on the planet.
Something like 90% of the
available biosphere, the living
place for creatures to occupy,
90% of the space on our planet
is ocean.
And I would argue
that the fish really
reign supreme in
this enormous realm,
certainly amongst
the vertebrates.
So there are about
30,000 species
of fish alive today, which
is the same number as all
of the other vertebrates
put together.
So 30,000 fish, but also 30,000
mammals, amphibians, birds,
reptiles, all put together.
So there's an awful lot of fish.
And they get up to
some incredible things
down beneath the waves.
They come in all sorts
of shapes and sizes.
And they do some
pretty awesome stuff.
So just to give you an idea
or some of my favorites,
a little rundown of
some my favorite fish,
we have the Greenland shark.
Recently discovered that
this guy lives for 500 years,
or can do.
The longest lived vertebrate on
the planet, pretty incredible.
They live under the Arctic ice.
They hunt polar bears.
Their hearts beat five times
a minute, pretty crazy things.
And they're huge.
They're about eight meters long.
So pretty huge things.
Here's the world's
smallest fish.
It doesn't even
have a common name.
It's called Paedocrypsis
progenetica.
This is it full grown.
They live in the peat
swamps of Borneo.
So fish can be very small.
And they can be huge
and live for ages.
I think these guys probably
only live for a couple of weeks.
And, yeah, fish do some
extraordinary things,
which we're just
really beginning
to learn about
through technologies
that are helping us
to see into the depths
and to track their lives.
And one example I love to
give is the bluefin tuna.
Being here in California, it's
quite a good example to give,
because it's kind of local,
at least for part of its life.
So the bluefin tuna,
this particular species
from the North Pacific, is
born off the coast of Japan.
And they feel off the
coast of California.
So they come over here and they
make this incredible journey.
And we know about this because
we have satellite tracking
technology, which can
now be small enough
to stick a tag onto a fish
and track where it goes.
And here's just one example
of one particular tuna that
underwent this--
was born in Japan,
underwent this
migration to California,
and then went back to
Japan to spawn itself.
And then the tag kept going
and it came all the way back
to California.
So over the course
of just 20 months,
it migrated 40,000
kilometers, which
is the equivalent of the entire
circumference of the planet,
which is amazing.
So fish aren't just
wandering around randomly
through the oceans.
They are undergoing
journeys to find places
they need to be for
different resources,
and navigating in very small
ways, which we're still
only just learning about how
they make these great journeys
and know where they're going.
So really extraordinary things.
But fish don't all
swim huge distances.
Some of them tend to stay put.
Now, let me show you a little
video clip that I shot a couple
of years ago-- hopefully,
it's going to work--
in Fiji.
Let's try again.
Just a really simple
underwater camera.
My photography
skills aren't great.
I was interested in the fish
here which is a Trigger fish.
And there was just lots of
colorful fish swimming around.
And I thought, well,
this is all very lovely.
And it did take
me a little while
to realize there's another
fish in this picture which
you can't at first see.
And it's really not too
clear in this picture anyway,
but just to give you a
hint, it's down here.
And it's a stone fish.
And again, I got closer.
I took some more shots of it.
It is bit clearer on the
monitor than on the screen.
But just to give you a
clue, there's an eye here
and there is a mouth here.
They are incredibly
well camouflaged fish.
It's one of those--
I mean, I call the book "The
Fishwatcher's Guide to Life,
the Oceans, and Everything,"
because one thing I want to do
is encourage people
to go and watch fish
and see them and appreciate
them in the wild.
And you get, like,
super high points
for spotting one of these
guys, because they're
so hard to pick out.
When you do, you're,
like, yeah, high five.
I've seen the
impossible to see fish.
AJ, you've had some up close
encounters with these guys,
haven't you?
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
So years ago, I used to
own a tropical fish store.
So fish have kind of
been a part of my life.
Well, it's interesting
that Helen didn't notice it
at first, which is
a little dangerous,
because as some you
might know, this
is actually one of the
most lethal, venomous fish
on the planet.
And if she were to,
say, kind of rest
and put your hand
down on that rock,
these guys can kill you
in like five, 10 minutes.
There is no anti-venom.
There's no like, yeah, let's
get to the hospital or anything.
Compared to scorpionfish
and lionfish,
which would ruin your day.
If you had an allergic
reaction to them,
could really ruin your day,
these guys would take you out.
So when I owned a
tropical fish store,
it was surprising you could
buy these just as a pet.
And so I had one on the front
counter of the store in a tank
about, yea, big, a
cylinder, kind of hexagon,
just enough space for a couple
of inches of gravel around him.
And he would just bury
himself in the gravel.
And so customers would come up.
And they would see this empty
tube and what's in that tank.
When I owned the tropical fish
store, I was pretty young--
disclaimer, 23-- so I thought
stuff like this was super cool.
Well, I'd grab a feeder goldfish
and I'd throw it in the tube.
And the gravel would just erupt.
And these things would
attack and hit their food
in a matter of like millisecond.
It's gunshot quick.
And the goldfish
would disappear.
They're be some
scales floating about.
And the people
would be blown away.
And then I'd go ahead and
tell them, and by the way,
if you were to put
your hand in there,
that thing would kill you.
Which would always,
blow people's minds.
But, yeah, he's a
pretty cool fish.
Good thing you didn't touch him.
HELEN SCALES: Yeah, so
they're ambush hunters,
which is really cool.
Like you say that they
hide and then basically
want to just grab the food
that comes close to them,
whether it's a goldfish
in a tank or one
of those fish swimming around.
So a completely different
strategy to those tuna
which are swimming miles
and miles and miles
to find their food, these
guys just sit and wait.
So I guess my point
is that fish just
have very different strategies
to survive and thrive
in the oceans to find their food
and get the stuff they need.
And they do some pretty,
pretty wacky stuff.
So right.
So a couple of things that
I'm trying to do in the book
is bust some of the
really ingrained myths
that we have about
fish, which I do
think puts a barrier
between us and them
in terms of understanding
them as wildlife.
I want people to
appreciate these things
as beautiful,
fascinating creatures
and not just as food or as these
slimy, smelly, boring things.
And I think this is one
reason why we do kind of have
this distance with fish
compared to other vertebrates,
with birds and mammals,
is this idea that they
have really terrible memories.
Like the three
second memory thing,
I don't know if you've come
across this or maybe seven
seconds for goldfish.
He's swimming around his
bowl and, oh, it's OK,
I don't remember what
happened last time around.
And this is really
deeply ingrained,
not just in the kind of
public consciousness,
but within science as well.
It's taken scientists
a long time
to figure, actually,
even through fish
have got reasonably small
brains to their body size, that
doesn't rule out them actually
having signs of what we might
consider to be higher
intelligence and the ability
to solve problems, to
memorize things, and do stuff
that maybe at first
we wouldn't expect.
So I've got a couple
of examples of fish
that I think help to
bust this myth about them
being kind of small-minded,
kind of dumb creatures.
One of them is this
guy, the Frillfin goby.
These guys live in the Gulf
of Mexico on the rocky shore.
They inhabit kind of
shallow intertidal pools.
And what these guys do
is when the tide is high,
they will swim around--
they're only little fish,
probably about yea big--
they'll swim around and look
at the environment around them
and basically memorize
the shape of the seabed.
And they're working out that
when the sea level drops, when
the tide goes out, they'll
know where the pockets of water
will remain, where the
pools are going to form.
And this could save their life.
And I'm going to explain this
with some really high tech
illustrations that I did.
Unfortunately, I didn't
get AJ to do these ones.
So no expense has been spared
at all with these illustrations
I made of the leaping gobies.
So here, we go to the
sea level is coming down.
We've got our goby in
the blue fish here.
And our predator is
this lovely octopus.
So the tide's coming down.
And what he doesn't
want to do is end up
in a pool stuck with a predator.
So what does he do?
So he can jump to
safety, but he needs
to know which way to jump.
He doesn't want to
jump out on land.
That would be
pretty bad for him.
But basically, they
have-- because they've
memorized the shape
of their environment,
they know exactly the right
direction and the distance
to jump.
And they will do that
when they need to.
And they will get away to
safety, which is pretty cool.
And even more cool is the fact
that scientists who study this
then thought, well, we'll
take them away for a bit
and see what happens.
So they collected these
fish up, kept them
in a kind of blank aquarium
tank for a couple of weeks,
I think maybe up to a month.
Put them back into their
natural environment.
And lo and behold, they
still remember what to do.
As soon as they get stuck in
the wrong pool with a predator,
they know where to
go and have a jump
to get this kind of exit
route to save their skin.
So these guys definitely
are not just--
they definitely have longer
than a three second memory.
And they have this
spatial map in their heads
of what's going on.
And you can see how this has
evolved as a survival strategy
so that they don't end
up being octopus food.
Now another of my
favorite examples
of a fish that
really shows us it's
got more smarts than you might
imagine are the cleaner wrasse.
These aren't particularly
good pictures.
These are my photos again.
I'm not a very good
photographer yet.
But it's basically this
stripey little thing,
short guy in the front
on the left hand side,
black and white.
And then this guy on
the right hand side,
I was taking a picture
of this big white fish
with black stripes, and didn't
even realize that behind
was another fish being cleaned.
So the cleaner wrasse, you
find them on coral reefs.
And they play a really
important role in the ecosystem,
because they pick off parasites
and dead skin from other fish.
And in fact, we've shown that
if you take cleaner wrasse away
from an area of coral reef, the
fish basically get pretty sick.
They suffer from more diseases.
And they start
getting pretty sick.
So they need this service
to have all these nasty bits
and pieces taken off of them.
It isn't just fish that
get cleaned, though.
Let me show you little video.
These guys are just
kind of programmed
to clean whatever comes along.
So you can have your
teeth done, if you want.
Hopefully, they're not finding
any parasites in there,
but I'm not sure about that.
So, yes, so cleaner
wrasse, they will just
clean whatever they come across.
What they're after
mainly are these things
called Gnathiid isopods.
They're kind of like
ticks of the sea.
They latch on to fish, suck
their blood for a couple
of hours, and then drop off.
Fish would much rather have them
picked off by a cleaner wrasse.
But, the wrasse--
I mean they eat thousands
of these things a day.
They are constantly,
constantly feeding.
There are fish coming
to they're cleaning
stations, hundreds
of them each day.
And they are stuffing
themselves with isopods,
with these parasites.
And for a wrasse,
actually, what they
would rather do, if
they can get away
with it is not eat the isopod,
but take a nice bite of skin,
maybe the flesh and the mucus
on the outside of a fish.
Especially on coral reefs, the
slime that fish are covered in
is actually full of sunscreen,
which helps stop them
from getting sunburned.
This is pretty important
in this sunny environment.
They don't make that
sunscreen themselves,
they have to get
it in their food
from bacteria in their food.
Or you can lick it
off another fish.
But the cleaner wrasse
know that there's only
certain times when they can get
away with cheating, basically.
Because a fish would
rather not have to make,
heal a little bite that it's
got from this cleaner wrasse.
It really just
wants a good service
if it's having its
parasites removed.
But this is where
we really start
to see the smarts of these
little fish coming out.
And it's through
scientists who've
been studying these things
for the last 10 years or so
and spending hours
and hours and hours
watching cleaner wrasse in the
wild and also in laboratories.
And they're showing
that these guys
have got a really smart
way of figuring out
how they should behave.
And they will memorize
all of the clients
that come to their
cleaning station,
know exactly which one's which.
They will be able to distinguish
between different species.
So simplistically, one
of the first things
they will figure out is well is
it a herbivore or a predator?
If it's a fairly
harmless herbivore,
like this surgeon and
fish on the left side,
then it can occasionally get
away with a bit of cheating,
because there's not
too much harm done.
But if it is a predator,
like this moray eel
on the right hand side, you
better behave pretty good.
Because it's pretty
extraordinary
that this fish could climb into
the mouth of a predator and not
just get eaten.
There's this truce
that is struck
in a cleaning station
that only happens
in this very special place.
Anywhere else on the
reef and that moray eel
will just eat that
wrasse straight on.
But somehow, they maintain
this kind of agreement
that that's not going to happen.
And it partly happens because
the wrasse behaves very well.
It doesn't cheat.
And it also knows that
it can basically kind of
manipulate that other fish
by giving it a message,
essentially.
So they will rub
themselves, their fins,
over the body of
the bigger fish.
And studies have shown that
the fish actually enjoy this.
Well, certainly their stress
hormones drop and they
seem to relax.
But, you know, you can interpret
that as enjoyment if you like.
It's possible, even,
that some of these fish
come to get cleaned
so often-- and they'll
come like many, many times a
day, because it feels nice.
And they do seem to have
this kind of-- they shiver
and they stop.
And they'll just sort of be in
this trance as this little fish
flicks over its body
rubbing and massaging.
And that's also what the
wrasse will do if they cheat.
So we kind of know that
it is almost apologizing.
So say it's cleaning
a herbivore, which
isn't going to eat it.
And also, it will look and
see who else is around.
So if there's a big long
queue of other fish waiting,
they tend to be
pretty well-behaved,
because they know that
those other fish could just
swim and go get
cleaned someplace else.
And they rely on that.
They do rely on fish coming
to be cleaned for their food.
But if the queue
is kind of short,
there's not too
other fish waiting,
and if it's a
herbivore, then, yeah,
they'll try and cheat
and take some slime.
But they will
apologize, and they
will immediately kind
of rub and smooth over
the fish and sort of, say, you
know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Don't swim off.
Please don't swim off.
You know, and usually it works.
And they kind of settle
down and they're OK.
So, yes, and the cleaner wrasse.
And there's lots of other
aspects of their lives
that are really surprising.
They often operate in pairs.
So a male and a female
will clean together.
And the male has the female
totally kind of controlled,
because she must never cheat.
Because if she cheats
and eats too much
mucus and goes
too big, she could
change sex and turn into a
male and steal his territory.
These are one of the sex
changing species of fish
that we have.
And he really doesn't
want his partner
to end up kind of
grabbing his territory.
So if he sees her
cheating, he is mean to her
and will basically kind of chase
her and bite her, because he
knows this is really bad.
So the female has to sort of--
if she's with him,
she has to behave.
So There's loads of crazy
things going on in their lives.
And so basically,
the cleaner wrasse
is showing us that
despite their small size
and their small brains,
they have evolved the need
to have quite
complex social lives,
to be able to communicate,
to understand that there's
different types of fish,
and to change and tailor
their services according to
what's going on around them.
And those are all
things that maybe we
wouldn't have expected not so
long ago, that fish could lead
such kind of nuanced lives.
And it's not just a
hardwired behavior,
this is responding
and solving problems
in really kind of small ways.
So that is the cleaner wrasse.
OK.
I'm going to move
on to another myth
that we get in the fish world.
And I'm going to come to my
favorite lady, Marie Fish.
And so another idea that
has kind of been around
for a long time is
that fish are silent
and that they don't
make any sounds.
I remember as a
kid reading books.
And if there were lots
of animals in the books,
I could do to the noises.
I could do the cows and
the sheep and the ducks.
But whenever there was
a fish in the picture,
I was kind of stumped.
You know, what noise
does a fish make?
It's pretty tricky.
And we kind of assume that
they don't make any sounds.
But they actually do.
And this lady got involved
in understanding more
about the sounds of fish.
And it was after the
Second World War.
And the US Navy were
actually the ones
who were interested in
knowing about fish sounds,
because the war effort had been
conducted-- kind a lot of it
had been conducted underwater.
There were submarines
for the first time.
Hydrophones had been invented
to listen for enemy war craft.
Only half the time
all they could hear
was just sounds of
animals underwater.
And it was really
getting in the way.
So for next 20 years, after the
Second World War, Marie Fish
at the University
of Rhode Island
was funded by the US Navy to
basically go out and record
the voices of fish, to figure
out when are they noisy,
what species make these
sounds, where all they, to try
and kind of listen through
this cacophony of sounds
they were making.
And that's what she did.
She was apparently
given a Chevrolet wagon
as her kind of fish
listening station.
She would drive around the
coast of Maine in New England.
And this was packed out
with equipment, the latest
hydrophones, miles of
cables, walkie talkies,
all sorts of really cool stuff.
I don't have a picture
of what that looked like,
but I kind of imagine it
looked a bit like this.
Only she wasn't there
looking to bust ghosts,
she was trying to find fish
to record their voices.
And she did.
She recorded hundreds of
different fish voices.
And I'm actually going
to play a couple for you
now, because these are
available in archives online.
Just to give you
an idea of these
are the sorts of
sounds that fish make.
No prizes for guessing
how this one got its name.
This is the grunt.
It's quite loud, sorry.
Yep, so there we
go, a grunting fish.
There is this guy.
Again, no prizes for
guessing the name.
It's nice.
And the second segment is good.
Oh, you can't resist that.
That's an amazing sound.
That's a male croaker
talking to a female.
And I can see how they
would respond to that.
I've got a searobin as well.
Kind of sounds like it barking.
Amazing sounds.
So there we go.
So fish make loads of sounds.
And there's hundreds of fish
that she recorded and analyzed
the different sounds
they were making.
And we now know that
fish make sounds
for all sorts of
different reasons.
This is a damsel fish, another
fish from a coral reef.
They are very angry,
territorial fish.
And if you come close to their--
they form seaweed on the reef--
and if you come close to
their little territory,
they will try and
scare you off, even
if you're human scuba diver.
And they will chatter
their teeth together
and make this drumming sound.
And you can hear
it in the water.
And they'll swim at you
and try and scare you off.
Other fish will make
sounds to call each other,
to attract partners,
during fights.
So piranhas have at least
three different calls,
we think, that they
use at different points
of their flights.
When it's the
beginning of a fight
and they're just
checking each other out,
in the middle of a fight, there
will be a different sound,
and then the victor has
a kind of victory chant
that it shouts out and
says, like, I win, you lose.
Don't come back.
They make the sounds in
various different ways.
So the grunt is grinding its
second set of teeth together.
A lot of fish have a
second set of teeth
at the back of their throats
called the pharyngeal teeth.
Here's a 3D printed
version of these guys.
I think a brilliant
use of 3D printing.
And they grind
their teeth together
to make those kind
of grunting sounds.
And the other thing fish do
is use an organ in their body
called the swim bladder,
which we actually
think evolved from lungs, that
fish did evolve lungs quite
early on, and then secondarily
evolved this organ which they
use primarily as
a flotation device
to stop them from sinking under
water, but also to make sounds.
So they do this in lots
and lots of different ways.
I'm going to show you one more
video clip of a noisy fish.
This is a toad fish
making some sounds.
Which is pretty dramatic.
And what that fish
is doing is it
has a muscle on the outside
of its swim bladder.
And it's vibrating that
balloon to make those sounds.
Triggerfish, which we showed
in that video earlier,
they will drum their fins
against the swim bladder
as a kind of use as a drum
skin, which is pretty cool.
And I always have to
give this example,
especially when I'm
talking to kids.
So this is the herring, which
let little bubbles of gas
out of their swim bladders.
They fill the swim bladders
up from their mouths
There's direct connection
through to that from the air.
But they let out these
bubbles at night time
to kind of coordinate
their shoaling,
so they know where
they are in the shoal.
And it's dark.
And they let small
bubbles out, which
would make a little sound.
But it comes out of their bums.
And the scientists
who discovered this
called it the Fast
Repetitive Tick.
I'm not kidding.
Here's the science
paper that it came from.
It's down there.
So that one's quite fun.
So fish make sounds for
all sorts of reason.
They are much more sonic than
we ever thought they were.
And we're still understanding
how this kind of fits
into their ecology and
how they're using sound
as an important
resource that they
have available to
communicate with each other.
OK.
So we've had sound.
We've had fish
smarts and brains,
which are things that we sort
of don't necessarily think
much of in the fish world.
The book also, I try
to address and look
at some of the
aspects of fish lives
that are unique to the fish,
and the things that they
do that you really don't see
in other groups of animals,
certainly in other
groups of vertebrates.
And there are some things fish
are just really, really good at
and have just
extraordinary abilities
that nothing else really has.
And one of those things
is bioluminescence,
the ability to make light.
There are 1,500
species of fish that we
know of at the moment that have
this ability to make light.
This means like the flashlight
fish here, which has basically
has headlights on the front
of it to see through the dark.
This is the angler fish.
If any of you have seen
that lovely documentary,
"Finding Nemo," I
think you should
be familiar with angler
fish and the fact
that they have this leer at
the front of the head, which
dangles down and then attracts
food into their big mouth.
This picture actually
comes from just recently
taken from a piece of footage
off the coast of the Azores
in the middle of the
Pacific, the Islands, down
at about 800 meters.
And I believe it's one of
the first pieces of footage
showing live female angler fish,
which are the big ones that you
can see, but with a male
trailing along behind her.
Actually, you can
just make out here
this is like sticking
down from her
is the degenerative, tiny male
who basically is a parasite
and kind of grabs on to her.
And his skin will
fuse with hers.
And he'll just drag
around with her.
And then she will use
him when she needs to.
So that's pretty cool.
So that's the first
time we've seen that.
And also, I think,
hopefully, you just
make out that they've
got this kind of net
of feelers, like tentacles,
coming out, which may also
be bioluminescent, they're kind
of hard to see in the picture.
So we're not sure.
But they seem to have--
maybe they work a bit
like cats' whiskers,
they're sensing things
in the water around them.
And so, yeah, so fish
are very bioluminescent.
Here's a diagram of
the fish family tree.
And 1,500 species,
but they're dotted all
through the evolutionary tree.
We think maybe on 30
separate occasions,
fish have evolved
to glow in the dark.
This is something that
just keeps happening.
And it's an example, I
think, of showing that fish--
these 30,000 species--
are really this
wonderful experiment
in evolution and in life.
And we can understand more about
bigger questions of evolution
in the natural world through
the fish and things like this.
So the fact that it's so common
to evolve bioluminescence
in fish is not a big,
difficult question to answer.
I mean it's really
dark down there.
We're talking about fish that
live mostly down in what we
call the midnight zone,
beyond 1,000 meters down,
3,000 feet where no
sunlight reaches.
And so it makes sense that
if there's no light around,
then making your own light
is super useful, for seeing
through the dark, for attracting
food, for attracting mates,
and all those kinds of things.
So this is something
the fish have
returned to again and again.
They aren't all in the
midnight zone, I should say.
There are some that live a
little bit higher up in what we
call the twilight zone.
So this is between about
200 meters, so 600 feet,
down into the midnight zone.
And this is where we get just
mostly really dark blue light.
All the other
wavelengths of light
have been absorbed
by water leaving
the short wavelength blue light.
It's basically why
the oceans are blue,
because that's the light
that penetrates the deepest.
And one of the creatures
that lives down there
is this guy, the Velvet
belly lantern shark,
a fully grown shark that you can
hold in the palm of your hand,
which is pretty cool.
And it has blue bioluminescence
all across its belly.
And the reason it
does that is so
that it can hide in this
area, the twilight zone.
Because imagine if you're down
there, basically looking up
towards the surface.
You would see this deep,
beautiful deep blue light.
Similar to if you stepped
out at twilight out on land,
and you'd look up and you'd
see this dark blue sky.
Then if a bat or a
bird flew overhead,
you'd see it's dark silhouette.
And if you were a
predator, you'd think, aha,
there's my food.
Same thing happens in the deep
ocean in the twilight zone.
If a bunch of fish swim by, and
a predator sees those shadows,
they know what to aim for.
But of course, bioluminescence
helps to get around that.
And it helps these fish
to hide in plain sight.
Now lots of fish do this.
They have maybe lines
of bioluminescence
down their bellies to kind of
break up their silhouettes.
They don't look
so much like fish.
Or you get something like the
Velvet belly lantern shark
which just match
entirely the whole--
they cover their entire
bellies with blue light that
matches the light around them.
And they can adjust the
intensity of that light
depending on where they
are in the water column.
So it's like a cloak
of invisibility,
which is really quite awesome.
And just a quick one, if
you're interested to know how
bioluminescence actually works.
Half of the fish
basically have chemicals
that they have genes that put
these chemicals in their bodies
that produce its light.
We generically call one of
the molecules luciferin--
it's actually whole bunch of
different things it can be,
but that's the name
that's come up with--
and an enzyme called luciferase.
Again, it can be
different things.
But basically, it's
oxygenation reaction.
It speeds up-- so
luciferase speeds up
a reaction in the
luciferin with oxygen.
And the outcome is
photons of light.
So about half the
fish have these genes
and that's what happens.
And half of them have bacteria
that are bioluminescent.
And they have
organs in their body
where they kind of
nurture those bacteria
and make light that way.
And this, I think, has to be
the most ingenious example
of a bioluminescent fish,
the Illuminated netdevil,
because it does both.
It has both in its lure
sticking up from its head,
she has bacteria in this
kind of bulb at the end.
And she's got this
beautiful beard
down at bottom, which
is a chemical reaction.
So she's evolved
bioluminescence twice
within the same
fish, which is just
extraordinary and wonderful.
So there we go.
Bioluminescence doesn't happen
in any other vertebrates.
Fish are the only
ones that do it.
And, my goodness, they do it.
And it's just one example, I
think, of some of the stuff
that fish do that's
quite surprising,
but it suits them perfectly
to this extraordinary world
they live in, this deep,
dark ocean, deep blue ocean,
that's so different
from us and the world
that we know out on land.
So that's about all I'm
going to talk about.
And brings me to
a brilliant point
where I can hand over to AJ.
Because I want to
introduce you to some
of the beautiful
artwork that he's done.
So not only have we
got the front cover,
but for each chapter,
AJ has produced us
a full page illustration
to go with the subject
matter, the chapter.
And from my perspective, the
process of how this happens
and how this artwork came to
be was quite a simple one.
I would write my chapter.
I would decide what
the chapter was about.
I would gather ideas of the
key characters in that chapter.
So this is the chapter
about bioluminescence
and there's lots of
awesome deep sea fish.
And then I would send a
list of fish names via email
from Cambridge in
Britain and ping them
over the ocean to California.
And then some time later,
some beautiful artwork
appears in my inbox.
And that's about all I know
about the whole process.
So I would love to hand
over to AJ to maybe tell us
a bit more about the process
from your point of view,
because I imagine
it's a little bit more
involved than the
magic box that you seem
to be from my point of view.
AARON GREGORY: A little
bit more involved.
But let's see, where
is your clicker?
HELEN SCALES: Oh, sorry.
That's inside there.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
So this is one, I
think both of our one
of our favorite
drawings in the book.
I love deep sea fish.
So I tore into this one
with a lot of enthusiasm.
But, yeah, the process
for this would basically
be Helen would send me an
email with a list of species
this long.
And I think I would like to have
all of these in the drawing.
And then I've got to
come up with a way
to make that look
natural, but kind
of not so natural,
because obviously this
isn't necessarily what the
deep sea ocean looks like.
This is kind of
a party going on.
And I think in this
particular one,
it was pretty challenging
because you wanted
to show the boat that ties
in with the researcher,
the original researcher,
who discovered
a lot of these species, in
I think late 1800s or mid?
HELEN SCALES: Yeah.
AARON GREGORY: OK.
Yeah, yeah.
So I had a draw my little
version of a period boat
from that time.
But then you had the idea of
wanting a rope to come down.
And so we're kind of looking up.
We're seeing the boat.
We're seeing the rope and
all these different species.
And that's quite something
to wrap my head around
as a designer and Illustrator.
Plus, you had your
mile long list.
But I even added some to this.
But so usually
what I'd do is I'd
start out with just some really
basic kind of rough thumbs,
like this.
And I start feeling it out.
Actually, this is where I start.
So really simple, just
sketching in real quick.
But with this
drawing, I pretty much
had it from the very
get go the idea,
like how this could go down.
It was in my head.
Refined it a bit here.
I think I moved the lantern
shark over and kind of puzzled
the sharks in there.
And then, I would send-- so
I wouldn't show them that,
because any illustrator will
tell you never show them
your thumbnails, because
the editors and the author
and anyone else will start
freaking out like, oh, boy, I--
I don't know, dude, if you
were cut out for the job.
And every pro Illustrator
will draw that
sloppy in the first stages.
So you don't want to show that.
But this is tightened up a bit.
So this is the rough
I would send over.
And everybody would-- you'd
have your critiques and whatnot.
I managed to get
the boat in there
and showed the rope and the
kind of illusion of maybe
we're looking at a trail of
animals going up to the boat.
Even threw some mountains in
there to show the kind of--
because a lot of this was
done pretty far north, right?
The research?
HELEN SCALES: All
around the world.
Yeah, yeah.
It was like this global journey.
But I do love the fact that
you have the mountains in,
because I think there's a lot of
classic images at the time of,
like, here's the boat
and the sort of scenery.
Like they would never
seen it with this,
but I feel like that top
bit, that's the kind of--
AARON GREGORY: I think I
must have been channeling--
I don't know if any of you have
watched the show "The Terror"
but I had read that book.
And it's basically a
British expedition.
They go up to the
Arctic, you know.
And so I was thinking-- and
it was that same time period.
You've got to have
the Arctic in there
so there's some
kind of mountains.
But anyways.
Everything he or she
wanted, except for this one,
this is a ninja lantern shark--
let me see if we can
get to the real thing.
And that's cool
really cool species.
Maybe you guys have heard of it.
It actually was all over
the internet last year.
My friend Vicki Vasquez, who's
a local shark researcher,
discovered it.
And her young nephew, I
believe, helped her name it.
Hence, the ninja lantern shark.
It's an all black shark.
And it's bioluminescent
all the way down.
So I'm like, ah, we
got to include that.
That's super cool.
And then we got a
cookiecutter, which
is the super weird, scary shark
that will latch on to whales,
and kind of twist and
carve out a perfect--
like a cookie cutter chunk-- of
flesh, whales, dolphins, even
other sharks.
They're pretty nasty.
Only about this big.
But they have teeth that's
like something out of a horror
movie.
Really wild.
Viper fish, dragon fish.
This is called loose jaw,
because this whole bottom
jaw just completely
comes out and you
can see right through it.
It's just like an appendage, but
lined with super little needle
teeth.
This is one of my favorite
of the strangest fish.
And he was kind of
making the rounds
on the internet I'd say about
three or four years ago.
HELEN SCALES: And
that was here, too.
Right?
That was California.
That was Monterrey Bay, right?
AARON GREGORY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Actually, I think
it was in BARI,
who we're going to go talk to
next week, the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research
Institution Institute.
This fish has
developed the ability--
so these too little slits
here are its actual eyelids--
to develop the ability
to pop its eyes back,
out from its eyelids
and look straight up
through its translucent skull.
That way it can see
prey and/or predators
coming at it from above.
So this whole top
dome is just clear.
Like the creepiest thing ever.
And I had to kind
of figure out how
to draw that in a black
and white ink drawing.
But yes, this was
one of our favorites.
Compositionally,
as an artist, you
try to just fit everything
in with the fluid motion.
I like to add some natural
interactive elements.
This guy is obviously
chasing these guys.
This dude is just trying to
be part of the party, which
like personality wise, I
also try to kind capture
their personality.
So the angler fish is
just like, hey, guys,
don't forget about me.
And then the sharks are
kind of the rock stars.
They're up top.
I forget the species
name of this little dude.
HELEN SCALES: Are
they the lantern--
AARON GREGORY: Not the lantern,
but it's the most prolific.
Like one of the most prolific--
HELEN SCALES: [INAUDIBLE]
AARON GREGORY: Yeah, I think so.
HELEN SCALES: I can find out.
AARON GREGORY: I'll
quiz you on that.
Oops.
That's you.
So that was a lot of fun.
And then one of the
ways that we found
each other is I own a
T-shirt company called
Cotton Crustacean
which originally I
started with the focus on
prehistoric marine animals.
Long story super short,
did a Kickstarter
to launch the thing.
One of the rewards was if
you pay x amount of money,
you get to pick
the animal, as long
as it's aquatic or prehistoric,
that way I could maybe
get some cool dinosaurs in
there if somebody picked it.
I would draw that animal.
I would include in
the T-shirt line
and you would get
the original art.
This one guy went down to
an aquarium with his son.
He was a fan of what
I was doing before.
So he knew of me, really
wanted to support.
Went down to the aquarium
with his son to go
see the argonaut octopus
that was washing up--
kind of down-- not the
Long Beach Aquarium,
but there's another little
aquarium down there.
I think it's called
the Cambria Aquarium.
And so he went down there and
he did the Kickstarter reward.
Again, like when I
came up that idea,
I was hoping people to be, like,
yeah, mosasaur and kronosaurus,
and all really cool big, you
know, teethy, toothy things.
And he says, well, I
want an argonaut, which
is about at the
largest maybe this big.
Usually, they're really small.
They're also called
paper nautiluses
Because what it is it's
the only octopus that
makes a shell alive today.
The female does it, excretes
it from the palms of her hands,
and it's like super paper thin.
It was like an egg shell.
I was like, ugh, all
right, so I got to do that.
And ended up doing the drawing.
It's become my
most popular shirt.
I cannot keep them in stock.
And if you Google
the argonaut octopus,
it is the third or fourth
image in the top row,
even with just other
photographs and whatnot.
It's definitely the
first illustration
you'll find online.
And so when she was writing
"Spirals and Time," which
she talks about the
argonaut octopus in, I think
you were googling, literally,
images of argonaut octopuses,
came across my drawing,
tracked me down
through whatever
websites, hit me up.
And here we are now
on our second book.
But originally, my whole
focus was giant monstrous fish
like this.
And so when she said I have
a chapter with all these guys
in there, I was stoked.
And then she sent me the list
of species and it was this long.
HELEN SCALES: Yeah.
Sorry.
AARON GREGORY: So again, I have
to sit there and think, well,
how do we had all these guys in
there, and make it kind of fun,
and not have it just
so overwhelming?
And the other main thing here
with prehistoric animals,
which is usually the case--
when people talk
about dinosaurs,
they show like T-Rex and
stegosaurus hanging out.
But those two animals are
70 million years apart.
They never knew each other.
The same with the prehistoric
fish, and inverts,
and whatnot, 250 million, almost
300 million years of these guys
before dinosaurs.
So when we're talking
about species like up here,
this is bothriolepis, that
bony guy way up there.
The Gogo fish, this little
guy down on the Gogo reef
in Australia.
They're from the Devonian Era.
So we're talking 350-ish,
almost 400 million years
ago around there.
Part of a family of
fish that are long gone,
but they were called placoderms
and they were usually
armored in the first
half, like a little tank.
And then their soft bodies
would be out behind them.
These dudes were all any range--
maybe the biggest about this
big, fresh and saltwater,
would eat scum and
stuff on the bottom.
But they had the
rock star big cousin,
which is the dunkleosteus
which has now
become more and more popular
in movies, and books,
and video games, and whatnot.
Basically the size of a
school bus with a head
like a snapping turtle.
So we had to have them in there.
And I think you had the
idea of them fighting.
So I got this guy doing
the cheap shot, biting him.
HELEN SCALES: And I should
say that's because we found
evidence that they did fight.
I think there's like
fossils with clearly
like injuries that could
only have been inflicted
by another dunkleosteus.
AARON GREGORY: They
would have fit the jaws.
HELEN SCALES: We have a good
kind of reason for doing that.
AARON GREGORY: I
mean and, again,
imagine the skull we find of
these guys are about this wide.
And there's not even
necessary teeth.
It's like they're
armored, kind of bone,
exoskull formed into the
wedges of the plates,
like a turtle would be,
almost like a bird beak.
You know god knows how heavy,
about the size of a bus.
So I sell a lot of shirts
with these guys on them.
As you can imagine, kids
love this kind of stuff.
But then, on your list,
you had something--
I can't even really pronounce at
the moment, we were trying to--
HELEN SCALES: I
can't even remember.
AARON GREGORY: I was trying
to say it last night.
HELEN SCALES: I could
have a look in the book.
AARON GREGORY: "Harpo
fumagoter," I think?
HELEN SCALES: Hang on a second.
AARON GREGORY: It's this
little tiny thing right here.
HELEN SCALES: Because also,
at the back of the book,
there's a key, so we
know what they all
are, because this is
very important me.
It is a Harpo--
hang on-- har--
pago-- futotor.
Harpagofututor.
That little dude with the--
yeah.
AARON GREGORY: And
so, of course, I'd
never heard of that.
And I go online to look it up.
And there's like maybe
three sketches of one drawn,
and like the worst fossil print.
You would never be able to
tell that it looked like this.
And so as a scientific
illustrator,
when you come across
that, you kind of
have to base your stuff both
off of whatever published
drawings there are out
there and findings--
I think one or even two
of those three drawings
weren't even professional.
So there were like one true
professional scientific
illustration of it.
So I knew the lay out, the fins,
just these little tiny dudes.
And obviously, when
you're drawing that small,
I'm not going to get
that detailed anyway.
So he ends up kind of looking
like a little Martian guy.
HELEN SCALES: I'm amazed
that you didn't just say no.
No.
I won't do that, which it cool.
AARON GREGORY: I just
liked his name so much,
I wanted to include him.
But then these guys
are all kind of
rockstar, prehistoric sharks.
This is the stethacanthus.
And why he's known
is because he has
this kind of radar
dish weird dorsal fin
that has spikes on it.
Pretty small shark about the
size of like a gray reef shark.
This is the edestus giganteus.
He's from the
Carboniferous period.
So when the planet was kind
of overrun with insects,
super lush forests,
pretty much nothing else
really cruising around.
It was like the
time of the insects,
the ocean we had these dudes.
And they had a single row
of teeth in their upper
and lower jaw that would
come down like scissors.
And they were bigger than an
average modern great white
shark, about 25 feet long.
So almost the length, but
not the Length of this room
going this way.
So he's super cool.
But all we have in the
fossil record of these guys
right here, just
the actual jawbones.
So with sharks, because they're
not an actual skeletal fish,
they're a bony fish.
Skeletons are made of cartilage,
doesn't fossilize hardly
at all.
And so we have to kind of
guesstimate and base them
off of more prehistoric
sharks that are alive today
that we know have been around,
because we found their teeth
and were not in
the fossil record.
So in the Bay, we have
seven gill sharks,
super prehistoric
sharks, we've found
fossils of the exact teeth
from 200 million years ago.
And then this dude who
doesn't necessarily
get the limelight like his
other buddies here has become
one of the biggest rock stars.
Called the helicoprion.
And his bottom jaw
was basically like--
this is what we would
find it's a tooth whirl.
It's just a single row of
teeth like a saw blade.
And for 100 plus
years, ichthyologist
and paleontologists would
try to figure out where
that tooth whirl would go.
And so there's all these
amazing, ancient ichthyology
drawings of that tooth whirl
on his head, on his butt,
on his tail, as a dorsal fin,
like side saw fins, sideways,
all sorts of crazy stuff.
And it's really only,
much to my disappointment
when I started my T-shirt
company in the last five years,
we've of got it nailed down that
it's stuck in the lower jaw.
It would actually have
molars in the top.
And the saw would come up.
And there's just enough kind
of cheek bones left in--
I forget what museum had it.
But they did a 3D
recreation of it.
And it all fit together
like a puzzle piece.
The reason why I say it
was my disappointment,
is because when I started
Cotton Crustacean,
I drew the helicoprion with the
old school way which is almost
like the bottom jaw
was like a whip that
came around and twirled
around like that.
And so it was such a
common way to depict
that that it's like
in Jurassic Park video
games and other stuff.
So I start my T-shirt company
and do the Kickstarter.
I make 120 helicoprion shirts
with the kind of whip jaw.
Three months later, the
latest findings come out.
And they're like,
hey, by the way,
it's a buzz saw in the haw.
And it's not even this
giant monstrous great white
looking thing, it's a kind
of a giant raffish, which
is a relative of the
sharks, it's cartilaginous.
They're also called
ghost sharks.
Kind of like a Dumbo looking
elephant of a little mini
shark.
But I like the drama still, the
little more, you know, panache.
This is the leedsichthys,
if I'm saying that right.
Like the biggest bony fish ever.
Bigger than a school bus.
I mean just 45, I think
maybe 50 feet around there.
Filter feeder.
Just super slow.
Would cruise around in packs.
And he was more around
in the Mesozoic.
So if I'm remembering
right, late Triassic
maybe around there.
HELEN SCALES:
Something like that.
Yeah, much more recently.
AARON GREGORY: Luckily,
there's no paleontologists
in the crowd.
HELEN SCALES: Hopefully, not.
Even though they
could correct us.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
And you know, the
same deal, here's
how I figured all that out.
Just working out the
different themes.
Figuring out who I wanted
to have the focus on.
This is the first
sketch here where
I was trying to have the big
old dunkleosteus in there,
but it got a little crowded.
Got more of a figure S.
And with any composition,
what I'm trying to do
is I'm also trying to guide
the eye through the piece.
So with these roughs, you know,
I had to pretty much nail that
and figure that out.
But, yeah.
So there's that.
And I'll show you one more.
This was also a
favorite of ours.
So there's the
final of this one.
What's the name of this chapter?
HELEN SCALES: It's "The
View From the Deep."
AARON GREGORY: "View
From the Deep."
So Helen gave me
a list of fish--
again, a mile long--
most of them freshwater,
but from all over the world,
and then one saltwater.
Being an aquarium
guy, and having
owned a fish store
and whatnot, we
get really particular
about mixing fish
from different
parts of the world.
Because if you're
doing that, you're
just doing it just to have
a fancy looking fish tank.
You're not actually trying to
create a biotope, an accurate
representation.
So we have Amazon tanks.
We have Asian river tanks.
We have African rift
lake cichlid tanks.
So she gave me this list of
all these different species.
And at first I was like,
ah, we can't do that.
Just, ah, you kidding me?
But I gave in.
And so originally,
this was a hagfish.
Believe it or not, this
thing was not a branch.
That is a pretty disgusting
fish called the hagfish which
is slimy and kind of
brainless, and maybe deserves
that reputation that you're
trying to break with fish.
There was an image going
around on the internet--
I believe was it this guy?
Where the car was carrying
like a slew of these
in a big bin in it's back.
And then I think the car got in
an accident or the thing tipped
over.
And what these guys do is they
secrete this totally nasty
slime kind of substance.
And you can take one
and put in a bucket
and it would fill the
bucket with that slime.
It could generate that
much saliva-live ectoplasm
looking "Ghostbusters," kind
of, you know, substance.
Anyway so there was this car.
It was carrying a whole
giant like plastic bin.
It probably had
like 300 of them.
And the slime completely
just took over the car.
It exploded all over.
It was all over the street.
It was over the car.
It had looked like something
out of "Ghostbusters,"
like the was something that
just came and slimed it.
The problem is even though
I liked having him in there,
he's a salt water.
And that's-- I'll mix fish from
different parts of the world,
but I won't mix a saltwater
fish with a freshwater fish,
because my reputation
is on the line here.
So hagfish got taken out.
But what we have is some really
big, super strange freshwater
fish.
If you've been to Cal
Academy in Golden Gate Park,
there's a big tank full
of the alligator gar,
it's one of my favorite.
And they get
ginormous 10, 12 feet.
You would find them
in, actually, rather
shallow rivers and
whatnot, in like say Texas.
Well, fine in the
Mississippi, but they're
definitely really
common in Texas.
Super slow moving.
They're becoming almost
endangered because, obviously,
in Texas this would be a thing.
People like to go hunt
them with bows and arrows.
So these big guys
come up without a care
in the world to the surface.
And dudes come out on
boats and they pluck them.
So--
HELEN SCALES: It's crazy.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
It actually has a
rope on the arrow.
So they're fishing
with the actual arrow.
So populations are being
depleted pretty quick,
which is a tragedy.
But they're not quite on
the endangered list yet,
I don't think.
But I love those
guys, you can see them
at the California
Academy of Sciences.
Big white Sturgeon, we would
get these right here in the Bay.
I grew up in Sacramento.
You would get these in the
delta in the Sacramento River.
They're anadromous-- right?
It's the right
word to say then--
freshwater and salt. They can
kind of go back and forth.
Also would get huge.
For a long time in
Lake Tahoe, there
was rumor of a Tahoe
Zone sea monster.
They called it
Tessie, I believe.
And then eventually
somebody caught
like a 15 foot one of these.
It was just an absolute monster.
Caviar, you know, but I
guess they're probably
pretty good eating.
There definitely there's
a fishery for them.
A good place to see these, if
you go to Aquarium of the Bay,
down by Pier 39, which I
know is like, uh, Pier 39.
But there is a legitimate
little aquarium
there called Aquarium
of the Bay where I
used to work as a scuba diver.
And we have a huge population of
these in the big tunnel tanks.
And they're pretty impressive.
They're like very
prehistoric animal.
Right?
Around since the dinosaurs.
And then these
guys, the paddlefish
you would find like in Missouri,
based in the Northern states,
out in the rivers and lakes.
There's a couple of
different quarries
that have been populated
with and that divers
will go just to see them.
It's a very strange,
fairly large fish.
Kind of built like
a shark in a way,
even though it is totally
a freshwater bony fish.
And then it has this really
large, weird paddle nose
that comes out.
They, I do think, are
on the endangered list.
Yeah, which sucks.
Their habitats are
getting wiped out
by pollution and damming
of the rivers and whatnot.
And then we have these
guys, the snakehead,
which you may have heard of,
because they are super invasive
and are getting into lakes
and rivers everywhere.
And they eat everything.
And they're, yeah, big.
If you've watched
"River Monsters,"
there's a great
episode where that guy
goes in and tries to find them.
He gets bit by one.
And they're hyper aggressive.
And they are just
kind of taking over.
I don't know why
they were introduced
or how they got-- and especially
up here in North America.
This is-- we were
laughing about this fish,
because I call it a bichir.
HELEN SCALES: I
thought it was bichir.
AARON GREGORY: Bichir, yeah.
At least in the
California Aquarium trade,
we call them bichir.
HELEN SCALES: You're
probably right.
AARON GREGORY: And
it's an African fish.
Right?
And my cool story about
that is when you'd go--
so when I had my fish store,
I'd go to these tropical fish
wholesalers, which are
big, damp kind of dank
warehouses with just rows and
rows and rows of aquariums.
And that's where the fish
stores would go to buy our fish
and take them back
to the fish store
and sell them to you guys.
A lot of these places
have drainage canals
that the tanks could
just easily overflow.
Nobody would worry about
water damage or anything,
concrete floors, drainage
canals with openings in them.
And what would happened
a lot is these guys
would get out of the tanks,
get into the drainage canals,
not get washed out.
They would hang around, eat
whatever else comes down there,
get really big.
And so sometimes you'd be
at the wholesaler picking up
your fish.
And you'd see something
go down these pipelines
where it was open.
And it was these
bikers-- that were just
like loving life living in
this Super Mario tube world.
So they're cool.
They're very
popular Korean fish.
Then this guy is the
lamprey, which is probably
one most disgusting--
HELEN SCALES: They're
parasites as well.
AARON GREGORY:
--parasites, also fresh
and saltwater, back and forth.
You'd find them in
the American River
in the delta, other
freshwater rivers,
obviously, but also
out in the ocean.
And they like to latch on
with this crazy circular mouth
that's just lined with teeth.
And kind of like the
cookiecutter shark,
suck a chunk out or
at least just kind
of draw blood and
protein from the animal
until they can shake them.
When salmon are coming
up the stream to breed,
lampreys are jumping on those
guys and hitching a ride.
And then last but not
least, these guys are--
Texas, Sacramento, Missouri,
Africa, everywhere, everywhere,
and then she wanted
African cichlids,
which are little super
colorful fish that live
in the rift lakes of Africa.
And also there are cichlids in
the Western rivers of Africa.
But there are certain
lakes, like Lake Malawi,
where the water's pretty clear.
And there are
millions and millions
of these, almost tropical
color like saltwater fish,
little guys called
African cichlids.
All sorts of different color
types, stripes, and spots,
super neon blues,
and reds and greens.
Some of the most beautiful
freshwater fish in the world
just swimming around
in the rocky reefs.
It would make for
amazing scuba diving,
but there's also
hippos and crocodiles
and God knows what else,
so African tigerfish,
I mean all sorts of things
that would just ruin your day.
But as a kid, the reason why
these are my favorite, very
popular aquarium
fish, if you get
into keeping freshwater
tanks, often you
would cut your
teeth on these guys
because they are so colorful
and they breed and whatnot.
So when I was a kid
getting into aquariums,
I would be like nine years
old, get on my BMX bike,
go down to the local fish store
with like a jar of like dimes
and nickels and I would buy one
of these fish, bring it home.
They're hyper aggressive.
So I'd throw it-- not
really knowing that yet,
learning about all this stuff--
throw it in my tank of tetra
and other kind of angelfish
and watch it just
massacre everybody.
So I'd end up with just one
fish that would just dominate.
And then I'd go,
OK, well, I guess
I'm going to keep
Africans cichlids now.
So I'd go get more with
every bag of change
I could scrounge together.
But super cool.
Completely out of place
in this lineup of fish.
But for Helen, I would do it.
HELEN SCALES: Thank you.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
So that's kind of how we would
come up with the drawings.
There's eight or nine
other ones in there.
And in the book she also tells
really cool like folktales
of fish from around the world.
And I would add a small kind of
spot illustration to each one.
And those are a
lot of fun to read.
But, yeah, that's
pretty much that.
It's how it all comes about.
Late nights and a lot of
coffee and sitting there,
and, you know,
hoping she likes it.
HELEN SCALES: I do.
I really do.
So much.
Thank you so much.
That's awesome.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
HELEN SCALES: OK.
Well, I will say thank
you to all of you.
Thank you so much to AJ for
being here and sharing insights
that no one else has had before.
That was exclusive
world first of the art
of "Eye of the Shoal."
Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming
and enjoying our fish world.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: Are there any questions
from anyone in the room?
AARON GREGORY: Q and A. Anyone?
HELEN SCALES: No worries
if you need to get.
SPEAKER: We have a few
questions on the Dory.
I'll read one of the
questions from the Dory.
So we have online questions
from the live stream.
I am interested to know
how the fishes pick
their partners in the wild.
Are they generally monogamous?
And also, what is
your favorite fish?
HELEN SCALES: Ah, the
favorite fish question I love.
I've had it like four times
now from kids and adults alike.
And it's really hard to
answer, because there's
30,000 species to choose from.
So I can have a daily favorite.
At the moment, I
think my favorite
is a thing called the
Mandarin fish which
is one of two animals
in the world that
have blue pigment in them.
Every other blue is
a structural color.
So butterfly wings,
it's the same reason
that the sky is blue and
that rainbows are blue.
It's a physical interaction
with the structure
of the material, not a pigment.
And the only blue
pigments have been
found in these beautiful
fish which also are--
I think they are not
monogamous, but the males
dance each night
for the females.
And they have this
wonderful kind of display.
So the females will
choose the male
based on his colors
and dancing abilities.
So often, it is the males
in the fish that are having
to show off to the females.
And the females will choose.
And in fact, there's a whole
bunch of stuff in the chapter
I write about color
talking about guppies
and how they have evolved
to be incredibly colorful,
but it's a real trade off
between sex and danger.
And in their native habitats
in Trinidad, in the Caribbean,
they live in these
little pools that have
different levels of danger.
Some of them have loads of
predators and some of them
don't.
And in the pools with--
scientists basically realized
that the pools with predators
had less colorful fish in
than the ones that were safe.
And then experiments show that
it only takes about 18 months
in captive conditions
and controlled conditions
to change their color.
So you take away the
predators and the generations
become more
colorful, because you
don't want to be bright and sort
of stand out if there's things
that are going to eat you.
But you want to be colorful
enough for a female
to come and mate with you.
So this is the trade
off between the two.
And some fish are
monogamous, aren't they?
I mean seahorses, I think, pair
up for life and various others.
I think some of the
cichlids do as well.
They can be quite good at
staying in their partners, sort
of partnerships, male-females.
And some, one of my
favorites actually
is a thing called the
chalk bass, I believe.
And they're hermaphrodites.
But they pair up for life.
And then about 20
times a day, just flick
between the genders
and kind of swap
over, male, female,
male, female.
So it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER: Any other questions?
AUDIENCE: So thanks for sharing
insight into these animals.
A lot of them, we would
never get to see other wise.
But actually seeing them in
person is really super cool.
And I'm assuming based
on your photography
that you've done some diving.
And I think you mentioned
that you were diving.
Is there like a favorite
place you've dove
or like a dream
location that you
would want to dive
or some place you'd
recommend that people check out?
HELEN SCALES: I do certainly do.
I don't if you do.
AARON GREGORY: I do.
You go first.
HELEN SCALES: So,
yeah, I do dive.
And it's really how I got into
all of this in the first place.
I learned to dive when I was
a teenager in England, which
definitely wasn't clear and
beautiful and full of lots
of fish, but it got
me into it anyway.
But since then I've
worked and researched
and dived all around the world,
which has been wonderful.
But actually, when I
was writing the book,
I had the chance to go on a
big, long trip around the world.
I was actually first port of
call was here in California--
when AJ and I met a couple of
years ago for the first time,
which was great--
and then we carried on.
My husband and I carried on
traveling around the world
and did as much
diving as we could
and watching fish and
kind of just getting
ideas for this book.
And the final place
we dived is a place
I've wanted to go to for
a really long time which
is the island of
Palau in the Pacific.
Which is a sort of if you
flew from here to Guam
and then you carry on another
one, it's sort of out that way.
And I'd always heard about
Palau as being like the divers,
scuba diver's heaven.
It's now very strongly
protected from overfishing.
The reefs are meant
to be beautiful.
And I had hugely high
expectations for it
and was kind of
nervous that it would--
whether it would fulfill that.
It was also this was 2016 when
there was a big heat wave.
There was coral bleaching
going on all over the world.
Palau had been hit by a drought.
But it was fantastic.
It was absolutely blew
me out of the water.
Just big, old
beautiful fish that I
hadn't seen for years, or really
ever in that kind of density.
The fish I had studied for
my PhD, which in the location
I studied at in Malaysia,
ended up being fished out
and they were gone.
But I saw them in Palau, these
things called humphead wrasse,
in huge numbers.
The reefs are beautiful.
And just extraordinary
place for just,
like, sort of heaven
under the sea really.
So, yeah, definitely go there.
How about you?
AARON GREGORY:
Yeah, so I mentioned
I dove with the
Aquarium of the Bay
for a couple of years
as a professional diver.
Then I dove at the Cal
Academy at Golden Gate Park
in all those tanks.
I even dove at the
Rainforest Cafe
as a job for a short minute,
which was pretty miserable,
but to pay the
bills for a while.
And I got certified
when I was 16
and growing up in Sacramento.
I was so, obviously, fish
obsessed and obsessed
with the ocean,
that I would dive
in the American River, which
ran through my suburban
neighborhood of Carmichael.
And you can imagine, it
was dreary and super cold
and high current.
And I wouldn't be
able to see you.
I had five or six
feet visibility.
But we'd get striped bass
swimming in from the ocean.
And we'd get shad.
And if I was super lucky, I
would maybe see a sturgeon.
But there was a
couple times I thought
I saw the big tail
of one that I had
startled as I came up on it.
You know?
Which also startled
me, because anytime
you're in dark, murky water
and something big comes at you,
there's always a aah moment.
So in some ways, those
kind of a crummy dive
spots where I'm like going
through like shopping carts
and like I-beams of
the old bridge that I'm
diving underneath and
all that kind of stuff
are actually really
nostalgic and kind
of part of my favorite spots.
Of all the spots I've
dove from the Philippines
to Monterrey and Mexico
like Cozumel and stuff,
my all-time favorite
is Catalina Island.
So an hour boat ride
out of Long Beach,
and there's literally
like an oceanic paradise.
For me, the best
California diving,
it's warm enough
that you don't feel
like you're going to
die after half an hour
of being under water.
But because it's still
temperate waters--
it's mid-60s-- and you get a lot
of the cool cold water species
and you also get kelp forests.
Visibility there is much
better than Monterey,
which generally is, on the
best day, 10 or 15 feet.
Catalina could be as much
as 40 or 50, super blue,
and like cathedrals of giant
kelp coming up and over.
A giant black sea
bass, the size of cars
almost-- at least they look like
it when they come up on you.
Leopard sharks breeding and
cruising around in the kelp.
Occasionally, blue sharks
and soupfin sharks,
smooth-hound, giant
balls of anchovies
that are the size of a house
that just block out the sun.
So that's my all-time
favorite spot.
But I haven't been as
many spots as she has.
HELEN SCALES: I haven't
been to Catalina.
Now I need to.
AARON GREGORY: Well,
see, there you go.
HELEN SCALES: Cool.
AARON GREGORY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AARON GREGORY: You're welcome.
HELEN SCALES: Thank
you very much.
SPEAKER: Thank you very
much for joining us.
I appreciate it.
Thanks you, guys.
Thank you.
HELEN SCALES: Thanks so much.
AARON GREGORY: Cool.
All right, guys.
[APPLAUSE]
