This bass jumped on a swimbait on opening day for walleye on Sturgeon Lake (in the Kawarthas). What do you make of the second mouth? I’ve seen fish with scars and deformities from being caught before, but this was actually shaped like a mouth and had a cartilaginous ring lining it. Thoughts? He was able to suck in the swimbait and swam away without an issue.—Ray Este, via email
Whoa! As soon as we saw this photo, we knew that we had to look into it. (This is the stuff that we live for. Keep it coming.)
The consensus from experts at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, and from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, is that this extra mouth is probably a healed injury. Rats. A second, functioning mouth would be way cooler.
Still, “this is an unusual case,” says Debbie Thibault, a specialist with the MNRF’s Southern Region Outreach branch. “The fish appears to have a healed wound stemming from a tissue tear of the lower jaw. The tongue looks like it dropped down from lack of support from when the tissue was intact.”
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Fish can be born with or develop all kinds of mouth deformities. These are often skeletal anomalies that affect their upper or lower jaws. A “double mouth” isn’t impossible. It’s just a lot less likely than an injury. “Digestive systems, from front to back end, are evolutionarily old in fish. Very old,” says Thibault. “So the likelihood of this being a true second mouth is very small, and would require some fundamental re-wiring of the genome to occur.”
On the other hand, the list of possible injuries a fish can sustain—to the mouth, or anywhere else—“is endless,” says Adam Weir, a fisheries biologist with OFAH. “Carrying out their life processes and daily activities, they’re bound to encounter things that can cause injuries.” These include attacks from birds, mammals, or piscivorous (fish-eating) fish, and fish-on-fish smackdowns. Male bass, in particular, aggressively defend their nests, says Weir.
Why would a bass attack swimmers’ feet?
Poor, possibly long-suffering Mr. Bass. But from your description, he sounds like he’s a tough customer. “We have seen many healed, injured mouths in fish,” says Thibault. “And in many cases, the condition of the fish is excellent despite a significant deformity.”
This article was originally published in the October 2021 issue of Cottage Life.
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