Fish Out Of Water

The first time that I saw a mudskipper, I had no idea what to make of it.  I was pretty young, and my grade-school brain was not about to process the concept of a fish - a live one, anyway - outside of the water.  I assumed that it was some sort of amphibian, a tadpole that I happened to come across at the exact moment that it was transitioning from life in the water to life on land.  We literally have the expression "fish out of water" to describe someone in a situation which is totally alien to them.  And yet, here we are.

Nor is the mudskipper (mudskippers, rather - there are several species) alone.  There are lungfish of Australia, South America, and Africa, which are among the most popular of aquarium exhibits - even though I've never seen one out of water.  A few years back, much of the eastern US was in a tizzy about the invasive northern snakehead, a fish from East Asia that can crawl from pond to pond over dry land.  

I remember the news articles of the early 2000's treating this fish like it was some sort of ravenous mutant.  There were no fewer than three B movies (if not C or D movies) based on the fish - Snakehead Terror, Swarm of the Snakehead, and, using the popular nickname for the species in the media at the time, Frankenfish, as well as a catchy song by the parody musical group The Capitol Steps, "This Fish Was Made For Walkin'," a spoof off the popular Nancy Sinatra song.

That's not how this works.  None of this is how this works...

The fact is, there's nothing unnatural about fish getting out of the water, though relatively few species can do so.  It's just that we're fascinated by animals that don't follow "the rules."  Birds that don't fly.  Mammals that lay eggs.  Bears that live almost exclusively on bamboo.  There is no rule book in nature, though, except, perhaps, for do what you must to survive.