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Bloodfish
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Name:
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Sanguichthys rufus
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Abilities and Weapons:
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swimming skills, vile poison
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Occupation:
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Generalist forager
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Home:
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Skull Island
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First Appearance:
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"The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island" (from 2005)
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Diet:
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Omnivore
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Status:
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Unknown. Presumably rescued by expeditions.
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The Bloodfish (Sanguichthys rufus, meaning "red bloodfish") was a cyprinid which inhabited Skull island's backwater canals and freshwater estuaries. Its bright red coloring was thought to provide it camouflage against the murky tannin stained water that was its preferred habitat.
Facts[]
The ancestor of Bloodfish was thought to have been a barb in the puntius genus. It was theorized that the ancestral Bloodfish was introduced to Skull Island around three thousand years ago by proto-Malayan's who sought to settle the island. The barb was likely imported as a domestic food fish. Exactly how the islanders transported the fish to the island is an enigma, however the success of their efforts hint at an extremely high level of technological sophistication.
Following their arrival (as with all alien species) the barbs escaped into wild waterways. Skull island's native class of fish Dipterus, were an extremely diverse cast of lungfish, relics of the Permian period. Because of their isolation, evolution left them woefully unprepared for the barbs. Soon intense competition for food and attrition from foreign disease drove most of the lungfish to extinction. The two remaining species included the infamous Piranhadon and the grotesque skull island Panderichthys malus (which only superficially resembled the Devonian age Panderichthys). Having wiped out most of the indigenous fish species the barbs diversified into the myriad of fish germane to Skull Island. Soon vacated niches were filled by an eccentric freak-show. From the clumsy Stink-fish to the vicious Needlemouth, and the rosy red Bloodfish . The barbs essentially replaced the lungfish.
In Skull Island's freshwater ecosystem Bloodfish were omnivorous opportunists which kept the local insect populace in check. During the breeding season of death wasps and needle gnats vast schools of Bloodfish congregated near the surface feasting on larvae and unwary adults. During seasons when the insects migrated away from water the blood fish reverted to their barb like habits and scavenged detritus from the water beds. Bloodfish was the most popular prey for medium sized skull island aquatic predators. A few neopedes subsisted entirely on them.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Like all animals from Skull Island. It is unknown what they faced during the sinking of the island. Given the multiple expeditions, there may be a chance that a few surviving populations was saved off-land to a more stable enclosure.