Word: toadfish
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...toadfish, with its huge head, small body and slimy skin, may well rank as the ugliest creature in animaldom. Sailors hate the toadfish because it croaks so loudly that it confuses sonar signals; fishermen despise it because it is as inedible as the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder. Piled up on beaches from Cape Cod to Florida, it smells like rotten whale. Yet even mudcolored toadfish can be heroes...
Last week at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., cancer researchers intently observed 60 toadfish injected with an experimental anticancer drug, methyl GAG (for glyoxal-bis-gua-nylhydrazone). The researchers were trying to find out why the drug produces an undesirable side effect-lowered blood sugar. The toadfish is an ideal subject for such an experiment because it has simple kidney and insulin-producing mechanisms that permit researchers to observe sugar changes. To obtain blood samples, the researchers prick each toadfish's tail. To collect urine, they attach balloons to the excretory ducts of the toadfish...
Cooperative Clams. Toadfish are only one of countless species of animals taking part in medical experiments on N.I.H.'s 818 acres in Bethesda and Poolesville...
...addition of a simple snorkel tube poking above the surface, the swimmer can cruise indefinitely on the surface with his face buried under water. So equipped, swimmers can peer for happy hours into the depths of the Gulf of Mexico or forest-bound lakes in Wisconsin, study the toadfish that fusses like an old lady off Long Island. Ducking beneath the surface, the strong-lunged pry abalone from the California shallows, or spear unwary fish that hover near the surface. Experts like Miami's great Pinder brothers. Art, Fred and Don (see SHOW BUSINESS ), can easily go as deep...
...conversation returned to the head of the table where Alfred Butterfield was talking not about groupers, nor queen triggerfish, nor toadfish, but sponge crabs. "Sponge crabs dress themselves up to look like sponges," he said, explaining that discriminating fish don't consider sponges good eating, "but little crabs are!" He went on, "We were determined to get them in the picture. We got some little sponge crabs. We left them alone because we wanted them to be happy. We didn't bother them, except to feed them, and didn't turn on any lights. And they didn...