senoritafish | Anime/marine biology crossover...

If you're not familiar with Inuyasha, it's a series about a modern day schoolgirl who falls down a magical well and finds herself in feudal Japan. The first person she meets is a boy with long white hair and dog ears, pinned to a tree by an arrow and apparently unconscious. It turns out he's half dog-demon, has been there for fifty years, and the person who fired the arrow was a priestess who looks just like Kagome, the schoolgirl. Since the priestess, Kikyo, died shortly after pinning Inuyasha to the tree, most of the locals conclude she is Kikyo's reincarnation, which Kagome vehemently denies. Kikyo comes back to life later in the series when a witch recreates her body from her grave soil, and steals part of Kagome's soul to give her life again. Since she's come back to life, she forms the third side of a triangle; Inuyasha is attracted to Kagome, but still hasn't dealt with his love/hate feelings for Kikyo. They both feel they were betrayed by each other, when they were actually deceived by another more evil demon. Kikyo sustains herself by collecting the souls of recently deceased women, which take the form of glowing balls of light, brought to her by snake-like creatures that swim through the air, and occasionally carry her around.

I find the character of Kikyo in Inuyasha mildly annoying, because even after finding out the truth about her death and Inuyasha's supposed betrayal, she wrongheadedly still wishes his death, possibly because she is really still dead herself. However, I do think her spirit collector sidekicks are rather cool. I've finally figured out why I like them.

They're searobins. Just look at these guys.
(right here - lookie!)

Well, sort of a hybrid of searobin and eel, but close enough. Searobins have large pectoral fins, which they open and close while swimming around. The bottom three fin rays of those fins are free from the rest of the fin, and I think, used for probing around the bottom for food, like the fingers the soul collectors have for grasping souls (I'm not sure, because I've only seen still photos of these guys, or dead specimens. But it sure looks like that's what they're doing).
(yep - click again)

More searobins, or rather more pics of the same searobin, doing different things.
(honest, this is the last time)

This is a lumptail searobin (Prionotus stephanophrys), the critter that instigated this post. My friend DP found this one in a load of sardines a boat brought in last week. It's one of two species of searobin found in our area, although this is the first time I've seen one.You can see the "fingers" at the bottom of the pectoral fin.