I used this photo in a post early this summer, about catching two fish in place of one, but it also works for a picture of a ling having lunch.

The Captain wasn’t wanting to catch a ling. It was salmon he was after. But here is how it happened, many, many years ago.

A salmon is jerking the fishing line. The Captain checks his lines  and  pulls up what he expects to be a coho. But it is not only a coho he has hooked.  A ling has been attracted to the wriggling coho and has swallowed him for his lunch. Unfortunately for the ling, the same hook that the coho bit has caught the ling somewhere down his throat and both fish were hauled aboard the fishboat together. The coho was not easily retrieved, and the ling could not be freed of it because of the ling’s teeth. He has sharklike teeth around his jaw, and another three sets of pharyngeal teeth farther back in his mouth (555 of them)! Not a place anyone would want to reach in with his hand while the ling was still thrashing about.

 

L is for the ling’s lost lunch.