The Galapagos Banjofish

The banjofish, Banjo y banyoustomous, a member of the large phylum of chordates, namely, those sometimes-vertebrates possessing a dorsal neural chord, pharyngeal slits often utilized as gills, a notochord, that is, a cartilagenous rod supporting the neural chord, and a tail, or structure extending past the anal opening, which, by the way, develops prior to the oral opening, and the smaller subset of vertebrates, particularly, in this case, Gnathostomata, or fish, is limited to a range of three isolated tidal pools in the Galapagos Islands where they live in proximity to a still-undiscovered jawless fish, member of the order Agnatha, which is, as said, undiscovered and hence unnamed, unlike the known two representatives of the Agnatha, the hagfish and the lamprey. The banjofish does not look like, or play, the banjo. Its discover, Marcus Aurelius Cooper, a late 19th-century master of the American banjo, is thought to have named the fish thusly out of pity upon finding it with no favorable characteristics whatsoever. The tidal pools where the fish is found are all located on the island of Santa Maria, or Floreana, or "Charles", including one site at the largely-submerged volcanic crater known as Corona del Diablo, or Devil's Crown. An early whaling village at Post Office Bay was the base for Cooper's explorations. The male banjofish mates for life with a group of eight females. In the early summer months the fish leave their tidal pools and migrate, overland, to a site near Post Office Bay where the actual mating occurs. This quarter-mile journey and the subsequent experience leaves the male near death. He is then pushed back into the ocean by the females, where he revives. It was this occurence, viewed by Cooper near midnight under a full moon, that occasioned the discovery of this species. The overland trek is made possible by the banjofish's spiny ventral fins, which they are able to flex appropriately. It is also thought, although without proof, that the banjofish, under certain circumstances, is capable of dining with a heretofore never-seen flexibility. A pre-World War II string of gruesome human deaths are now thought related to a rogue group of banjofish. Outside of the expected diet of smaller fish and kelp, the razor-toothed and land-capable banjofish is thought capable of a very varied menu, although recent possible examples of this tendency are almost non-existent. Banjofish, caught and observed with a proffered potential meal of meat, merely float listlessly and stare back at the observers. Unless monitored by camera, which the fish apparently can recognize, the meat will "disappear" in the researcher's absence. Such a specialized adaption to their environment has limited the fishes' range to the aforementioned few sites. Despite conservation efforts, human encroachment on their mating ground has further limited their numbers. Efforts are underway by the Ecuardorian government to monitor their numbers and ensure their survival, short of feeding them people.