Bright lights, weird sounds, unfamiliar faces – such is the environment that welcomes many new babies as they are first ushered into this strange, new world wearing little more than a disgusting, muscusy blob and a smile.  Being born can be traumatic enough as it is – the last thing a baby should have to worry about is whether or not own their parents are going to eat them!

And yet if you happen to be a baby fish, that’s exactly the sort of thing that you need to be concerned about – a puzzling piece of trivia which I was abruptly reminded of late last week when I received the surprising text message explaining that one of my wife’s fish had given birth to a scattering of little baby fishies earlier that day!  Having played the baby fish game long ago when I was a child, I knew that this was not the time for celebrating the gift of life or buying little miniature footie pajamas for every last one of them – those things would have to wait.  For now, we needed to focus on a more important matter currently at hand – specifically, getting the babies out of the tank before their mother consumed every last one of them as sort of a post-delivery snack, if you will…

Now as you might imagine, my mind couldn’t help but wander as I painstakingly darted that small, green net to and fro, scooping up baby fish that were no bigger than the tip of a pencil (and nearly invisible unless you were looking right at them!).  This is most definitely a “unique” situation, to say the least – how many species on Earth have this kind of problem?! Certainly lions are known for taking excellent care of their cubs.  Same with sharks and giant squids and even giraffes, with those creepy, black tongues of theirs!  Ok, so I guess that technically hippos occasionally eat their own young, but it’s not like we were never warned – where do you think the game Hungry Hungry Hippos came from?!

Can you imagine what it would be like if humans couldn’t be trusted around their newborn babies either, though?  I mean, the delivery room is already tense enough as it is – how do you think that would go over?!  “Yes, dear – you can hold your new daughter … just as soon as she grows big enough that she won’t fit in your mouth anymore…”

In total, after about an hour’s work I was able to rescue a whopping eight baby fish refugees from the dangers of parental cannibalism – whether there were any more that were stealthier at hiding or maybe just ended up being super teeny fish sticks, I guess we’ll never know.  But surprisingly, baby fish actually grow pretty quickly, so hopefully within the next 6-8 weeks we’ll be able to put them back into the main tank with their parents once again, after which I’m sure a pretty interesting conversation will eventually take place…

Does Fish Hallmark make a card that says, “Sorry we tried to eat your brothers and sisters when you were first born…”?