Odontobutis obscura with Eggs

Odonto what? Odontobutis obscura, also known as a dark sleeper, is a small freshwater fish found in Japan, China, and Korea.

Odontobutis obscura with eggs
Odontobutis obscura with eggs, Canon Powershot D30 (License image)

"Freshwater?" you ask. Yeah, before staying up late into the night a while back with my friend Ito-san to search for fireflies, we visited a ditch.

Yes, a ditch, next to a field, on a super-hot day, with biting/ stinging insects and all, just so I could lie on the ground like a temporary buffet for mosquitos and other little nasties, and stare into a tiny crevice in dark, murky water to try to discern the outline of an extremely well-camouflaged fish.

tony wu photographing odontobutis obscura
Me, trying to outsmart(?) a fish, aka Me, feeding mosquitos

It took a while for my eyes to adjust, particularly since it seemed as if all the blood in my body rushed into and pooled in my head, making me somewhat googly-eyed and (more) incoherent (than usual). Once I had worked the situation out, it became apparent that it wasn't going to be easy to photograph the mother-to-be and her brood.

Odontobutis obscura with eggs
"Which is my better side?" asked the vain fish (License image)

She was deep in a crack barely taller than her body was thick, under an overhang, in a place where no light reached, at least not enough for photographic purposes. Moreover, there was no way a housed DLSR could get anywhere near the fish, and it made no sense to get into the ditch, as the muck would've stirred up so much that visibility would have been zilch.

Ito-san lent me his Canon Powershot D30, a waterproof compact camera, so that I had some hope of getting photos. The process was awkward, inelegant at best, and shooting blind (meaning I couldn't really see what I was photographing, except by taking a shot, removing the camera, reviewing the photo, re-thinking and re-positioning the camera to try again while shooshing blood-sucking flying arthropods) was less than ideal.

Odontobutis obscura with eggs
Odontobutis obscura puzzled by the re-appearance of disembodied camera-wielding hand (License image)

But in the end, it I demonstrated once-and-for-all that I am capable of out-thinking a fish in a hole, no matter how silly I look in the process.

Odontobutis obscura with eggs
The expression says it all (License image)