Please allow me to introduce you to everyone’s favorite Rubik’s cube of the sea-
They’re, uh. Well, see for yourself.
(A vision of geometric perfection! With kissy lips!)
Despite looking like an ocean-borne Bethesda glitch, the Yellow Boxfish is a real animal with hopes and dreams just like yours. Well, maybe slightly more angular, but you get the picture. Found in warm water reefs worldwide, (say that five times fast) Yellow Boxfish start life tiny and bright yellow, eventually fading in color as they reach their adult length of about 18 inches. They live mostly off algae and the bitter tears of mathematicians. (Just wait until they discover the Hypercube Boxfish)
We STILL don’t know how they work- being a literal cube seems to make them incredibly agile swimmers, but we’re not sure why. Maybe the ocean is just really into right angles? Also just in case they weren’t weird enough, they also have a bad habit of squirting a deadly poison everywhere whenever they get startled like an excitable toxin grenade
While it is an efficient way to horrifyingly murder every other fish in the general vicinity like guests at a poison dinner party, this toxin has zero effect on humans. Unless you were to attempt to eat the Boxfish, so don’t do that. (I’m sure people do it anyway.) Yellow Boxfish are popular pets and are kept by many aquarists. Your local fish store may have one right now, go say hello! but gently, lest you accidentally startle this weird dumb square toxic grenade of the sea.
IMAGE SOURCES
1. Nazir Amin, Flickr
2. Zsispeo, Flickr