The Father Lasher

We found this fish, which was about eight inches long, stranded on the sand by a falling tide. Having taken its portrait and feeling rather sorry for a beast which, to our eyes, looked extraordinarily ugly, we managed to return it to the water but, even though it was evidently still alive, it....

....seemed to have given up on life and was immediately washed back up again.

As can be seen, it has a disproportionately large head with a mighty mouth on the front of it, and a small, tapering body. It also has rather strange appendages, some of them sharply spiny, and pectoral fins which look like short legs.

The short-spined sea scorpion, Myoxocephalus scorpius, also known as the father lasher, bull rout, bullhead, sculpin, clobberhead, pig fish or devilfish, isn't common in shallow waters, being a deep-water bottom dweller which is an aggressive hunter, catching crustaceans and other fish which can be as big as it is - which can be rather big, as specimens up to three pounds in weight and two foot long have been landed, probably by rather surprised anglers.

Rather sadly, we left our father lasher on the sands where, in all likelihood, the seagulls made a meal of it.