Mudskipper (Periophthalmus argentilineatus) Around Bengkulu River

Mudskipper in Bengkulu - Sumatra - Indonesia

Actually i want to give the title for this post is "God, Tell Me Who I Am". It because this poor animal is an abnormal kind of fish. It is fish, but not live in the water, it is not amphibian because its totally not resemble any of them. The most approximate resemblance to this fish is the froglet without leg. It seem that the evolution for this species had stopped before it reached its end. The best way to describe this species is "the species that got stuck in the middle of evolution". I try to find the species name of our guest here, and the most similar kind goes to Periophthalmus argentilineatus.

Periophthalmus argentilineatus

The mudskipper in Bengkulu averagely can grow up to 3 inches. It makes it is not the same species as giant mudskipper (Periophthalmodon schlosseri). This kind of fish is easily to find in many rivers in Bengkulu. The one I encounter here lives in Sungai Hitam (Black River) Bengkulu, about 2 km from Bengkulu city central.

The thing that is very amazing from this kind of fish, it it prefer to live on the water to in the water. Almost all of its time is walking around the bank of the river, looking for food on the land, climbing the root of pine trees, playing on the ground or just hanging around over a block on the water. Even if it is threatened, it will not dive into the water. If you want this kind of fish to be the occupant of your aquarium, you will be so disappointed, because it will not dive or swim. It prefer to jump like a frog on the water surface using its pair of pectoral fins. Short to say, it just need the moist, but dislike water. "I hate waterssss"

Good thing for this fish is the people of Bengkulu is not interested to consume it. It made this fish is free from first number one enemy - the fishermen. The only thing that maybe endangering this species is its ecosystem.

The mudskipper in Indonesia is called Blodok. In Bengkulu i never heard the special name of it. We just call it jumping fish. The species name of this fish is Periophthalmus argentilineatus is refer to its big eyes. Mean while the term mudskipper itself is reffering to its way to move on the mud by skipping its fins. Ha..even scientist had a different point of view about what the name for this fish.

The things i can say about its eyes are, firstly the eyes can blink. I saw several times it blink only left eye or only right eye an most of time it blinks altogether. And the second, you can see too from the images that the eyes is colored blue. The blue color of the eyes is happen when i took the picture using flashlight of my camera. I mean, these eyes are glowing blue, different from our eyes that glowing red under the flashlight of camera