Arapaima! A mystery's at hand!
Oh, how did you land on Florida's sand?
Why did you come? Did you say your goodbyes?
Was it for love? Or a change in the tides?
With a tail that's red and head copper-green,
You're the strangest mermaid we've ever seen.
Your swim bladder barely lets you submerge,
Then you come up and eat monkeys and birds?
Arapaima! My love for you abounds!
A suit of armor shields 400 pounds
Piranhas can't touch you; others steered clear.
Your mail is intriguing our engineers.
Twenty million years in one location-
Well, that's what we call a real staycation.
Man got carried away hunting your banks;
Now you're under threat without any thanks.
Arapaima! whose male fish incubate
Ten thousand some eggs is plenty of yolk.
Yet, we need to restate to all y'all folks-
Species extinction ain't no kind of joke!
Comments
A mighty fishy story...
I read about the Arapaima long ago and the men who fish for them. The people that I read about were catching and releasing, not hurting or taking them from their habitat; apparently realizing that they were an endangered animal even then. You kept the rhyme and scansion going well. Nice little lesson in ecology too! ~ Geez.
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The animal kingdom
is an endless source of interest. Yes, I see conservation is having a positive impact in some locations and Florida is concerned they will become an invasive species due to their lack of non-human predators. Thanks for the read and the feedback.
Jeremy Wade
and his TV show about fishing introduced me to this bulldozer of a fish. I was unaware it was on the edge of extinction. Most apex predators such as this are fairly scarce as they require so many prey species to survive. the ending rhyme break was almost unnoticeable. I'll leave it to you to decide if this is a good or bad thing
The Smithsonian
I think labels their conservation stats as "data deficient." However, I have elsewhere seen rumors of threat. Yeah, I was of mixed mind about how much of a change to make. I didn't want it to be jarring.
The change is most effective when it is easily detected
That makes the reader pause and usually re-read the stanza.If you add this to an almost startling message the poem might just become what we all want to write, a memorable poem.9 Dang I'm really setting myself up to HAVE to write something beyond ordinary now)
You know you got it
when even your subject line rhymes!
Advice taken
with a little of my childhood dialect thrown in. Thanks.
I'm glad you enjoyed
I want everyone to love the animal kingdom as much as I do! I think we're learning that those "mythical" creatures, like the Kraken, were real after all.