Parental Responsibility in the Fishy World

It is interesting the way God has provided not only for us but also for creatures that we consider insignificant at times. When we look into the wonderful world of animals, we see the fact that many times the mother will stick around and help her babies get a good start in life, on the other hand, a lot of times we can see the exact opposite, where the parents abandon their babies and leave them to fend for themselves from the time they are born or from the time that they hatched from the egg.

Let's take a look at some fish that take care of their young and some that don't.

Probably the first thing that passes through your mind, when it comes to fish doing something for their young, is the salmon. The salmon is famous all over the world for its spawning run, these fish start out in freshwater and when they hatch they migrate to the ocean to live their life, however, when the right time comes, they all go back to the stream where they hatched. The amazing thing is that they actually remember the exact place where they were born.

The journey is long and hard, after they locate the stream mouth they use their memories and their sense of smell to guide them to the place where they were born. On the way they have to fight their way up waterfalls and raging currants not to mention the numerous animals that feed on them; by the time they reach their destination the salmon is exhausted and starving to death, with nothing but willpower driving her on the female digs a shallow nest out in the gravel and lays her eggs which the male then fertilizes. With their work done, the pair slowly drift downstream to die, their job was finished.

When the eggs hatch out the whole process starts all over again, with the little making their way to the ocean, only to return several years later and start another generation of salmon. That isn't the only fish that dies so that they can bring their young into the world, the freshwater eel does almost the same thing but this time it is exactly opposite; this fish, instead of spawning in the sea does his spawning in the ocean.

During their life, the freshwater eel lives in streams, with the male living near the mouth of the stream and the female living farther upstream, this is where the eels spend the majority of their life but when the time comes both eels leave their streams to head for the wide expanses of the great Atlantic ocean swimming for thousands of miles to the place that they consider their spawning grounds. When the eel leaves her eggs (over one thousand feet below the waves), they then drift down into the great abyss to die...It is truly amazing what some fishy parents will do to make sure their babies have a good start in life, it is a shame that parents in our world don't do half as much most of the time.

Did you know that it can take the eel larva up to three or five yeas to make it back to their streams?

Let' stake a look at some fish that actually take care of their young after they have hatched. There is a small, freshwater-saltwater fish that takes excellent care of the babies; when the female is ready to lay her eggs the male stickleback, goes and builds a nice nest and then carefully guards the incubating eggs.

The male bass also guards the eggs of the female, but even more amazing are the fish that have taken everything a step farther and carry the babies around in their mouth, a classic example of something like this is the sea horse, the female lays her eggs in the male's pouch and that is where the eggs hatch. There are some fish that make a sack made out of bubbles for the eggs.

God put all this in the fish so that they would have a chance to survive, maybe we can take it all as an example of how much we should be willing to go through for our own children.