Pennant Bannerfish

Description:

A good reason to be a butterflyfish is you get a drum kit inside your body. The ribs have specialized nodules on them (sort of like the tip of a drumstick) and they are next to a specialized muscle that vibrates so that they hammer against the fish’s swim bladder (the air sac that stops them from floating up or sinking down). This fish makes different trains of sound, each one sharing a particular feeling or meaning and not just butterflyfish have these drums, many fish have different drums and different rhythms and if the bubbles were not so noisy and our ears worked better full of water the reef would be a percussive wonderland, a heaven for drummers. Ocean Freedom, Guardian Joe Buck