The theme for this week’s #SundayFishSketch was fish that don’t look like fish, which is most definitely the case with almost all larval marine fish. They almost never look like their adult selves and almost always look like beautiful, alien-esque, yet nightmarish imaginings of someone like Guillermo Del Toro.

There are a variety of reasons for this. One such is defense against predators. The jagged edges and protruding spikes of some larval fish act as a fish-y porcupine defense through direct erection and relaxation. Some of their shapes help to simply make them more difficult to swallow since most planktivorous fish are gape-limited.

All that aside, this week’s theme could not be more fitting for our latest podcast episode of The Wild Life, ‘Scattered’. In this episode, we look into the void to unveil the cause of the once mysterious Deep Scattering Layer, taking you on a journey involving covert military research in World War 2, the largest migration on earth, shimmering creatures of the deep (and their food), and an organic machine responsible for capturing carbon and sinking it into the depths of the ocean.

Hint, hint: larval fish, a large component of zooplankton, play a key role in this story.

Listen below to learn more or check us out on iTunes!