The oriental flying gurnard, Dactyloptena orientalis, is a flying gurnard of the family Dactylopteridae. This flying gurnard inhabits the Indo-Pacific Oceans at depths to 100 metres (330 ft). Their name is derived from the French word 'gurnard' meaning to grunt, for the grunting sound this fish makes.
The oriental flying gurnard is up to 40 centimetres (16 in) in length and is usually a grayish brown color with dark markings. The fish has huge, round pectoral fins having many dark markings and a bright blue edge. The pectoral fins are normally held against the body, but when threatened the fins are expanded in to scare predators which include sea breams and mackerel. The flying gurnard uses its pelvic fins to walk along the bottom of the ocean.
The oriental flying gurnard feed on bony fish, bivalves, and crustaceans.
Famous quotes containing the words oriental and/or flying:
“Since the Greeks, Western man has believed that Being, all Being, is intelligible, that there is a reason for everything ... and that the cosmos is, finally, intelligible. The Oriental, on the other hand, has accepted his existence within a universe that would appear to be meaningless, to the rational Western mind, and has lived with this meaninglessness. Hence the artistic form that seems natural to the Oriental is one that is just as formless or formal, as irrational, as life itself.”
—William Barrett (b. 1913)
“What the hell is nostalgia doing in a science-fiction film? With the whole universe and all the future to play in, Lucas took his marvelous toys and crawled under the fringed cloth on the parlor table, back into a nice safe hideyhole, along with Flash Gordon and the Cowardly Lion and Luck Skywalker and the Flying Aces and the Hitler Jugend. If there’s a message there, I don’t think I want to hear it.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)