Andrea Louise Leed, age 10, of Denver, Pennsylvania, for her question:
Is there a creature called a sailfish?
Yes indeed there is a sailfish and he happens to be one of the most magnificent crea¬tures of the sea. His graceful beauty and his splendid strength make him outstanding. Aside from which he has a huge built in sail down his back which explains how he got his name.
When you visit Florida, your eye is sure to wander out over the sunny blue waves of the Atlantic. And very soon you are rewarded with some surprising offshore sights. Maybe a group of big mouthed pelicans fly by in formation, just above the waves. Later you may be startled by what looks like a snaky sea monster looping, up and down, in and out of the surface water. No, you are not seeing an impossible sea serpent. This is merely a troupe of playful porpoises prancing up and down. On a lucky day you may spot a huge fish spring¬ing up into the air and down again. He may be a monster marlin. But if he has a huge, high sail on his back you are watching the playful antics of a real live sailfish.
The handsome sailfish of the warm Atlantic may be six feet long and weigh 120 pounds. A specimen weighing 141 pounds and measuring more than eight feet was caught off the coast of Africa. The sailfish of the warm regions of the Pacific are even larger. A specimen caught off the Galapagos Islands at the equator was nearly 11 feet long and weighed 221 pounds. No matter which ocean he lives in, a mighty sailfish is one of nature's most splendid creatures.
His long supple body is silvery violet blue along the back, shading to naler tones underneath. His great curved sail is his dorsal fin, reaching down his spine from behind his head almost as far as his slender, sickle shaped tail. Ms upper jaw is a long spike, somewhat like that of his cousin, the swordfish. The back and sides of the shiny blue beauty are neatly dotted with contrasting blues. Sometimes there is a streak of yellowish buff along each side where spots of medium blue spread down toward the pale areas under his body.
As a swimmer, the mighty sailfish is a master. When in a hurry, he folds his several small fins close to his body and tucks his great sail fin neatly into a groove along his back. His smooth, tapering body is then streamlined like a torpedo and like a torpedo he goes. He has been clocked at sprinting speeds of 60 miles an hour faster than a fast horse can gallop on the dry land. These qualities make the magnificent sailfish a favorite target of game fishermen. The tackle they use is a lightweight rod and reel with almost endless lengths of thin, superstrong line. When hooked, the great fish fights for his life with all his mighty strength and even an expert fisherman may have to struggle for hours to land him.
The life history of the sailfish is rather odd. The adult fish spawn during the summer and the youngsters do not take after their parents at all. The little fellows have spiny heads and toothy jaws. Later in life, both the spines and the teeth are discarded and the youngsters grow spear shaped upper and lower jaws. The lost teeth are not re¬placed and in the adults only the upper jaw remains long and spear shaped.