Golden Fishing Village

The telescope carefully scanned the circle, and Ao Muyang selected a tidal flat.

He found a large section of plastic hose, cut it into sections with scissors, tied the lower end of the hose, then put down the small raft and said, "Let's go catch the mud monkey."

Zhu Zhu noticed these hoses and asked in confusion: "Are you using this to catch mud monkeys? How to catch them? Will they dig into the pipes like eels?"

Ao Muyang smiled and said, "You will know later."

Mudskippers dig holes in sandy swamps and live in them. Although they have the ability to leave the sea water and come to the flat shallow beaches to explore alone, they can even climb rocks, climb trees or even climb to land to live out of the sea water for two or three days. But they prefer to dig a hole on the beach and hide in the hole to live.

This is very important for their survival. Mudskippers have many natural enemies. They like to stay on the ground after low tide, so they face the risk of being preyed on by seabirds and various terrestrial mammals. After the tide rises, many carnivorous fishes will come to the shallow beaches, which are also their natural enemies.

But other sea fish are different. They cannot leave the sea water. They follow the tide when the tide rises and falls, and they face only so many natural enemies.

Although mudskippers can live away from the sea water for a period of time, most of them will not do this. It makes no sense. They still like to stay around their nests, so finding their nests means finding their bodies.

Conventional methods of catching mudskippers are all based around their nests, such as hand catching, cage catching, and hanging nets.

The small raft paddled to the shore in a blink of an eye. Liu Mei searched carefully on the tidal flat, then pointed to the side and said: "Little pig, look, that's the mud monkey."

Zhu Zhuang raised his head and took a good look at it for a while, then said blankly: "Where? Didn't you see it?"

Sixth Sister came to her and pointed it out to her, saying, "Look ahead, there is a fish jumping in the muddy water. Do you see it? That's a mud monkey. There are two fish over there, both in the muddy water."

After her instructions, Zhu Zhu finally saw it: "Is that a mud monkey? Is that a mudskipper that can climb trees? I just saw it, and I thought it was a toad in the mud."

From a certain perspective, mudskippers really look like toads. Although they have slender bodies similar to other fish, they like to hide in the muddy water with only their heads or half of their bodies exposed, and the lower half, especially the tail fin, is inserted into the water.

This is because the gills of mudskippers can store water and slowly absorb oxygen from the water. In addition, their skin, mouth, epidermis, and tail fins can all assist in breathing, and the tail fin is particularly outstanding in this ability.

When half of the mudskipper's body is exposed, the most eye-catching thing is its pair of eyes, which protrude outward from the top of its head, like a bean or a toad.

Ao Muyang said: "Those little toads, they are mud monkeys. When we catch them later, we will put them on the tree and let them compete in climbing the tree."

Zhu Zhu smiled and said: "That's interesting. I haven't seen a fish that can climb trees. But, how do we catch it?"

"Scare them so much that they crawl back into their burrows. Their burrows have two openings like a rabbit's nest. Then seal the back opening with mud and put the fish cage in the front opening. They will get in by themselves. "Sixth sister said.

Ao Muyang shook his head: "We didn't bring a cage. Besides, the village is full of big cages, so we can't catch this fish. Look at me, I'll catch it with this hose."

When the boat docked, they discovered that there were quite a few mudskippers on the tidal flats.

Most of these fish are very active. Sometimes their heads suddenly become larger, sometimes they arch their backs, raise their tail fins and twist their bodies.

There are also some fish lying quietly in the puddle, with only half of their bodies exposed.

Looking at it from a close distance, Zhu Zhu said: "They are not like toads, they are a bit like salamanders. But salamanders don't make their heads bigger and smaller like this. What are they doing?"

Ao Muyang said: "In courtship, those fish that twist their bodies to show themselves are male fish, and those that do not move are female fish. Male fish use provocative movements to lure females."

"Like a male peacock opening its tail to attract a female peacock?" Zhu Zhu asked.

Just when Ao Muyang was about to nod and say yes, Sixth Sister sneered: "Licking a dog will end up with nothing, and licking a dog never ends well."

"Why are you so bitter and so angry?" Lu Zhizi asked with a smile.

Sixth Sister still respected her very much. She pursed her lips and said, "It comes from my feelings."

Ao Muyang said: "Okay, let's not talk about these useless things. We are going to catch mudskippers. I will teach you how to do it. Let's use a roundabout strategy. After we get ashore, we will go into the woods and then look for the caves on the tidal flats. After we find the caves, Just put this plastic tube in, it’s very simple, do you understand?”

Lu Zhizi nodded and said: "If you try to drive them away later, they will crawl into their own caves when frightened, and eventually they will get into the plastic pipe, right?"

"Smart." Ao Muyang snapped his fingers.

Zhu Zhu smiled again and said: "I also understand, this is a civet cat replacing a prince."

Mudskippers were scattered along the swamp on the beach. As soon as the raft landed on the beach, several fish were frightened and quickly ran into the holes.

Some of their caves are above the tide line, so to get in, the mudskippers have to completely leave the water and crawl on the shore.

Zhu Zhu saw them emerging from the sea and said hurriedly: "Let's go to the shore to catch fish, so..."

She had only said half a sentence when several mudskippers had already swished into the cave at very fast speeds!

Zhu Zhu was stunned: "Is this a mud monkey or a salamander? Isn't it running too fast?"

Ao Muyang said: "They run fast and can jump. In addition, you should pay attention to their very good vision. Be careful not to let them find us."

The eyes of mudskippers are very flexible. They have no eyelids but only two large eye sockets. The eyeballs can protrude from the eye sockets or retract into the eye sockets, like two ball bearings, and can rotate 360 ​​degrees.

The mudflats were muddy and Zhu Zhu wanted to go down directly. Ao Muyang held her back and said: "Don't, be careful not to sink. Let the leader go down first to step on the mines."

The leader, Youfu and Wolf Da and Wolf Er were all on the raft. They had been on the boat for a day and felt very uncomfortable.

There was no need for Lao Ao to tell them. As soon as the raft stopped, they jumped down. And they also saw mudskippers. The mudskippers ran like water rats, which were attractive to cats and dogs.

After the naughty kids jumped off the boat, they wanted to chase the mudskippers. As a result, Wolf Two was the fastest. After he jumped on, he was half a head shorter. All four long legs were gone!

Next came Wolf One and General. With a few puffs, they were all half a head shorter.

The three long-legged naughty kids were stunned. They looked at each other and found that they were still in the same dimension, which made them feel relieved.

Then they turned around and saw that the head of state and Youfu, who used to look down, were also in the same dimension as them...