The Most Abundant Fish You’ve Never Seen
Living just below our docks is one of the Salish Sea’s most abundant—and most misunderstood—fishes the spotted ratfish. Ratfish are ancient relatives of sharks and rays, remnants of a much more diverse group of fishes that dominated the oceans before a mass extinction reshaped marine life. This talk dives into ratfish biology, from their hidden nursery grounds here is Friday Harbor to an evolutionary plot twist involving a tooth-covered mating structure unlike anything else in vertebrates. It’s a story of backyard discovery, strange anatomy, and why studying overlooked species can change how we think about evolution, conservation, and the future of marine science.
