Post by @sunguramy@flipping.rocks

2026-09-28 20:12 UTC

I did not have this find on my bingo card for the year... ...Deep in a cave in Tennessee, thousands of feet underground, as I rounded a bend of the river passage leading a group of biology students and recent graduates in a bioinventory of the cave....I stopped suddenly and definitely swore a little "WTF is that?! GAR!?" Yes my friends, a friggin' Gar, about four feet long, just swimming in one of the pools. Not a single person I know of has ever seen this in a cave before. Critters from the surface do get washed in at times, and this cave has connection to surface water. However, the creeks above it are not really Gar habitat, so even us biologists are at a bit of a loss. Well, not the property manager, who promptly said "wow, he was only this big *mimes a few inches with his fingers* when I put him in there!" (sarcasm, in case you cannot tell!) So...enjoy a big gar, with a human for scale. Fun fact: it would follow the light from our headlamps around, like a little kitten following a feather toy, but it declined to follow out of the pool it is comfy in Boost if this made you smile today! (ETA: Please don't at me to yell at me about not "saving" it, or ignoring that fish have feelings, or anything along those lines. Floods wash things into caves. Critters explore where maybe they shouldn't. There's a song in the Lion King about it. Sometimes we can rescue things out of caves that belong on the surface, but often we cannot, and for millions of years these accidentals feed the ecosystem, and support many of the other creatures that call this cave home. If you struggle with this concept: Think of it as colonization gone array so the locals win in the end.) #fish #gar #monster #cave #caves #caving #biology #nature #shock #river #ecosystem #Mesozoic #ancient #history

Replies (12)

@mitch@hoagie.cloud 2026-09-29 02:24

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks god forbid a fish have a hobby

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@Chancerubbage@mastodon.social 2026-09-28 21:11

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks I would not be shocked to see a Gar there today. I -WAS- shocked the time I discovered this evolutionary throwback even existed, when I was night fishing as an adolescent. Not in a cave.

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@octothorpe@mastodon.online 2026-09-28 21:36

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks @lisamelton@mastodon.social Long gar is looooooong

Open ##5196594
@Axomamma@mastodon.online 2026-09-28 22:32

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks "Fun fact: it was starved for light, it would follow the light from our headlamps around, like a little kitten following a feather toy. Boost if this made you smile today!" I'm sorry but what kind of sick people are following you? Never mind, don't answer. That you make this suggestion after telling that story tells me everything I need to know.

Open ##5196595
@tshirtman@mas.to 2026-09-28 22:43

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks while i found the discovery quite awesome, i do not, in fact, find this fact to be fun, fish are also sentient beings, i guess being a biologist you are used to think of the ecology, and not as much as individuals, who live and die by them, and yeah, when it dies it'll feed others, but still, suffering is no fun.

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@Devils_Rancher@beige.party 2026-09-29 00:23

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks A gar? bizarre!

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@superball@norcal.social 2026-09-29 00:29

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks I want to save the gar—put him where other gar are, in the light.

Open ##5196601
@frogglin@theblower.au 2026-09-29 01:54

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks Probably on holiday, seeing the sights.

Open ##5196603
@superball@norcal.social 2026-09-29 02:20

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks (I wasn’t yelling. I was expressing compassion.)

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@PeryleneBleu@eldritch.cafe 2026-09-29 06:17

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks also, that's partly how evolution works.

Open ##5196606
@jimkreft@social.coop 2026-09-29 11:38

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks also the only way that you get cool and weird eyeless cave fish is by millions of fish being unsuccessfully washed into caves until the right series of events occurs!

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@dwenius@toot.cat 2026-09-29 23:04

@sunguramy@flipping.rocks @ben@s.djehuti.com AWESOME. #DinosaurFishBestFish

Open ##5196608