Snaz Fisheries aka My Battle with a Dangerous Predatory Animal

Saw these guys at the Kansas City Zoo a few years ago. Glad I saw them there and not out in the wild as described below.

Hello Everyone! We've had a lot going on the past couple of months (I mean A LOT)...had a baby, bought a house, that kind of stuff. I'm not going to bore you with those details. Instead, today I was reminded of this post by reading a Popular Science article today about an African fish that can catch and eat flying birds. I had to post this blog again because as soon as I saw this article it was all I could think about. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!


I originally posted this back in April of 2010, but thought I'd post it again, since it's one of my favorite Hulabuns nightmare stories and I'm pretty sure most of you haven't read it.

This one goes back a couple of years. One night Binderclips and I were in bed sleeping. I was sleeping with my head on his shoulder (this was before we realized what happens to me when I get hot while sleeping, more on that later). So, he was on his back and I was all snuggled up on my side laying towards him with my head on his shoulder, near his ear.

Anyways, I was having a dream that basically consisted of me watching a documentary on predatory animals. It started with the black bear and how it "cautiously sneaks up on elk and moose" (said in a documentary type voice - think Alec Baldwin-ish (but not the yelling at his daughter Alec, more like 30 Rock Alec)). It went on to describe how "the black bear only hunts salmon at night as it's dark fur is easily seen during the day". I found this to be gripping and could not stop watching such a fascinating documentary.

Next came the Snaz fish, in which "sneaks up on it's prey, then, without warning, eats the prey whole in one gulp!" 'HOLY SHIT!' I thought, 'it looks like such a harmless fish'. I was obviously not expecting it to eat the nice little fishy it was following (think Finding Nemo with Dory following around Marlin type deal) whole - in an instant. 'And I thought they were friends!' I thought, devastated.

Then, all of a sudden, I was dropped into the water to compete with the Snaz fish. "Swim quick and keep chomping" said the documentary type voice "you must catch the prey before the Snaz fish does." So, what did I do? I FREAKING STARTING SWIMMING AND CHOMPING SCARED FOR MY LIFE!! I was chomping and swimming and swimming and chomping and just could not catch the darn prey AND THE SNAZ FISH WAS QUICKLY APPROACHING!! I just tried to swim faster and chomp harder!!

Next thing I know I'm looking at Binderclips who's looking at me with a terrified look on his face.


I'm awake. 'Crap, guess I lost that competition' I think. "What are you doing??!!" he says (in a terrified voice). I respond with "Oh, I was just having some dream about a documentary in which I was in a competition with the Snaz fish. I had to eat the prey before it did, you know that kind of stuff" (thinking he must have just woken up from a terrifying nightmare himself). I follow it up with "Are you ok? Must have been some nightmare you were having, you look terrified". Still looking terrified he says "NO, I'M NOT OK! I thought you were going to bite me!!"


"Bite you! Why would I do that?" I say. "Because you were squirming all around and chomping at my ear!" he says. To which I respond to with a burst of laughter. I flash back to my dream and do recall doing both of those things, however did not think I was really doing them or was I?

I finally get him to believe that I was not actually trying to bite him (it was harder than you might think as we had an incident before this in which he was teasing me with a piece of chocolate and I MAY have bit him, accidentally, of course).

To this day he does not let me live down the Snaz fish incident. In fact, on occasion I find that he's named things 'Snaz Fisheries' (he made something on my computer this name, I forget what it was exactly). We still have discussions on how I came up with "Snaz fish" as the type of fish, which I honestly have no clue why that was it's name. :)

Have a great day folks! Later gators!

Originally posted 4/7/2010