Has any aquarium ever exhibited flying fish?

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Does anybody know if any aquariums have ever displayed a species of flying fish? I would imagine that the size of an exhibit needed to display their gliding behavior would probably be prohibitive, but I really don't know.

Has anybody here ever seen flying fish in the wild?

Here is a video of a 45-second long "flight" of a flying fish:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7e0_1211314043
 
at least one of the aquariums in Japan has/does. There was a photo in the gallery from Tarsius but it may have been one of the ones he got deleted.

I've seen them in the wild. They are really cool.
 
I have never seen them in the wild, nor an aquarium. the only place was alligator adventure, in myrtle beach, s.c. they had them in an open-topped pool, made of concrete. it was nothing spectacular, besides the animals themselves. I found it strange they were exhibited like that, and of all things, in a reptile park. this was back in '97, and I was more interested in seeing all the reptiles and amphibs, than flying fish and macaws. it was also the only time I ever saw them on exhibit. I have gone back there a few times and have not seen the flying fish. a year later, after my first visit in '97 that same exhibit, had capybara and yellow-foot tortoises. where the exhibit was, there is currently a mix of exotic birds and galapagos tortoises.
 
Chlidonias said:
at least one of the aquariums in Japan has/does. There was a photo in the gallery from Tarsius but it may have been one of the ones he got deleted.
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yep it's been deleted, but it was at the Kamogawa aquarium
 
Thx David,

I had never really paid any attention to them they are awesome!

Makes me look t fish in whole new way.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone. Until doing some background reading on flying fish for this post I had no idea that there were multiple species of them and that they are so widespread.

It seems that there is a history of keeping flying fish in captivity, from a prominent aquarium in Japan to a roadside gator attraction in South Carolina. I'm surprised that more mainstream aquariums haven't displayed them, but maybe there are some husbandry problems?

Here is some interesting basic info on flying fish. The flying fish is the national fish of Barbados and the group has been around for at least 65 million years.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_fish]Flying fish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
I've seen them in the wild, while I was traveling between islands in the Galapagos. They were memorizing to watch. I actually thought they were birds at first, they were "flying" together in a V-formation and everything.
 
I visited the Marine Aquarium at Banyuls-sur-Mer last month . It is part of a scientific organisation and was created in 1885 . All its exhibits are local to the Cote Vermeille .

One tank held a number of flying gurnard , which were redddish in colour with stripes along the body . I did not note the scientific name of the species . I tried several times to get a decent photo but , as they did not stop moving all were blurred .

It was a very interesting small aquarium , unfortunately I was not able to stay long .

If anyone is interested I will down load one of the photos .
 
I saw them many years ago while on a boat in the Ionian Sea, they were leaping out of the water in front of the boat and gliding quite a distance before dropping back into the water.
 
Giant Eland said:
I've seen them in the wild, while I was traveling between islands in the Galapagos. They were memorizing to watch. I actually thought they were birds at first, they were "flying" together in a V-formation and everything.
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when I have been sea-watching from ferries between Indonesian islands the pesky flying fish make me think they are seabirds every time!! You catch the movement above the waves and immediately think petrel, then realise its just another fish.
 
Bele said:
I visited the Marine Aquarium at Banyuls-sur-Mer last month . It is part of a scientific organisation and was created in 1885 . All its exhibits are local to the Cote Vermeille .

One tank held a number of flying gurnard , which were redddish in colour with stripes along the body . I did not note the scientific name of the species . I tried several times to get a decent photo but , as they did not stop moving all were blurred .

It was a very interesting small aquarium , unfortunately I was not able to stay long .

If anyone is interested I will down load one of the photos .
Click to expand...
flying gurnards are not the same as flying fish. They are benthic fish, not surface-dwellers. There are only anecdotal accounts of them gliding through the air, and it seems unlikely that they would actually do so. They are pretty easy to keep in tanks, unlike flying fish apparently.
 
A 'flying' fish that might be more suitable for an aquarium display might be the various hatchetfish Gastropelecus etc - small characins from the Amazon. I have read (but am not sure if it is correct) they go even further than the much larger marine flying fish and approach powered flight - they certainly have very odd shaped bodies that might give room to muscles to power the pectoral fins. Showing this off might be more difficult though...
 
Zoovolunteer said:
A 'flying' fish that might be more suitable for an aquarium display might be the various hatchetfish Gastropelecus etc - small characins from the Amazon. I have read (but am not sure if it is correct) they go even further than the much larger marine flying fish and approach powered flight - they certainly have very odd shaped bodies that might give room to muscles to power the pectoral fins. Showing this off might be more difficult though...
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that is correct, hatchetfish actually flap their pectoral fins when in the air (flying fish hold the pectorals out straight and glide, using the tail as a sort of propeller which is why they usually skim the surface). They can't travel further than flying fish though -- hatchetfish tend to shoot up vertically or at an angle, they don't "fly" horizontally across the surface as flying fish do when they glide -- and they are also much much smaller fish.

They are easy to keep in aquariums but their "flight" is a predator response so they don't demonstrate it in captivity unless they are startled.
 
I've seen flying fish a number of times in Niue, when going out on dives. I've tried to gte photos of them but they are just too quick and the camera doesn't have time to find or focus on them before they disappear.

:p

Hix
 
I talked with our Husbandry director about this and the biggest hurdle IS the flying part - how do you keep the fish from hurting themselves as they fly out of the water? Nets will end up full of crunchy dead flying fish, hard surfaces will damage them... you just would not be able to display them flying which is exactly what guests would want to see.
 
chrisbarela said:
I talked with our Husbandry director about this and the biggest hurdle IS the flying part
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They generally don't fly unless scared and in an aquarium this can largely be solved with netting. Similar to the many other fish that a 'jumpy'. There are other flyingfish problems that are at least as big: They are very delicate and it is difficult to get them to eat. Similar to the more familiar herring, which also tend to have rather short lives in aquariums. As far as I know, the few places that have tried to keep flyingfish have never really been a success. They die after a fairly short time. I can't imagine any surviving shipping either, so the only aquarium with any chance are ones that can catch flyingfish locally. Too bad because they have a very interesting behavior and some actually have quite beautiful wing patterns, e.g. Cheilopogon furcatus. In appearance, most species largely have the patterns and colors shown in photos on this blog (also an Ommastrephid flying squid for the connoisseurs ;)).
 
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