It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Northern pike are supposed to be green, but this is a little ridiculous.
CBC News in Canada first published the photos of this crazy neon green northern pike caught out of Great Slave Lake in late August. Since then it has made the rounds online, and it seems everyone has an opinion of how the fish came to be such an unusual color.
According to CBC news, Randy Straker and Craig Thomas caught the 38- to 40-inch “jackfish” and then released it after taking photos. With an estimated weight of 12 to 14 pounds, it was a good fish, but the most striking thing about it was the color of its lips.
“The whole top of the fish had a different green,” Straker told CBC News. “If you look at the mouth, it looked like green lipstick. It was so bright.”
Some of the online comments were pretty good. One man said the fish must have come into contact with fluorescent green plumbers dye, but the explanation that made the most sense came from Jeff Goudreau, a wildlife biologist who guides on the lake.
Goudreau told CBC News he has caught several fish with the same coloration and that it’s caused by chromatophores, which allow pike to change colors depending on their habitat. He compared it to the ability of squid to change colors in the ocean, and theorized the pike might be trying to blend in with the bright green algae growth around the reeds where it hunts.
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