My “Fish torturing me” thread brings up a thought… most fish are pretty ugly on the bottom side…

[Magnum Man]

Anyone think of a fish that is pretty on the bottom??? Maybe a fish that spends its time on the surface maybe marble hatchets, or African butterflies???

 

[Magnum Man]

I thought of this as I’m watching a big fat Flying Fox, glass surf in my Asian tank… and of course all the Hillstream’s are just as ugly on the bottom as the Pleco family

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yeah, hatchets are pretty from below. A lot of the schooling fish have nice, silvery-white bellies, occasionally with interesting patterns. But usually if those are showing you their bellies, something is very, very wrong.

 

[GaryE]

The underside of a fish is usually camouflaged for the sky and wavelets - white. I can think of fish that looked great seen from below at an angle (Epiplatys killies) but straight on, they don't want to be seen.

From netting fish, they are really vulnerable from directly below if you sweep straight up, and I've caught a lot of fish by sitting the net on the bottom of a stream and pulling up as the fish passed. Darters are suckers for that one. So the belly showing would be an invitation to predation. I'm sure the predators come straight up sometimes too.