HALFBEAK ?

When i was doing my national service in Nee Soon Camp I would walk though an intimate street in Lentor where there was a small road bridge that spanned across a small river or stream. It was a unique river because all my time in my childhood I spotted rainbow fishes and Churchill fishes but never have I encountered live bearing Halfbeak fishes in freshwater conditions which I only read in books.

Be it that I might be born too late in the sixties to enjoy nature like you would experience in a P Ramlee movies but this fish is unusual ! My auntie calls them in teochew Pua Jiam Tao literally "Half Sharp Head". Amazing! So the pre war generation seen them before. A quick check on the internet shows there were a few different variant and even those in the sea. This fish is immediately different when you see them from the top. The float more on the surface and their silhouette is remarkably different from other fishes with a needle like posture that delineate the water reflection.

I apologies that I will not reveal where this bridge is for fear that the half beaks would be wiped out.

Further reading :

http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/vertebrates/fish/hemiramphidae/hemiramphidae.htm

http://www.ecologyasia.com/verts/fishes/forest-halfbeak.htm

http://sgwildanimals.blogspot.sg/2012/12/ricefish-halfbeaks-needlefishes.html?m=1