Incredible Fish Climbing Waterfalls With Their Mouths

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Transcript

00:00 Beneath the tar, on the valley floor, rare pools of water teem with life.

00:06 Freshwater fish.

00:09 Only three species survive in the Al Hajar mountains, and this one is the Oman gara.

00:16 They endure only in isolated permanent pools of the wadi.

00:21 These tiny fish get by, scraping algae and any other detritus from the rock walls of their watery prison.

00:30 Their survival depends on much-needed rainfall to replenish their shrinking refuge.

00:39 But rain is unpredictable in Arabia.

00:45 Some years it does not rain at all.

00:49 Then, some pools will dry up, and the fish in those will die.

00:56 80% of the water that falls in the mountains will evaporate.

01:01 The rest quickly runs off the hard ground and into cracks in the rocks.

01:07 Rain here in the Al Hajar mountains is erratic and unreliable.

01:14 A mere six inches falls each year, and it comes in only a few short, heavy bursts.

01:25 The rain runs off the mountains, building momentum as it descends to the valley floor.

01:33 Light rain can quickly turn tranquil pools into rapids.

01:40 While toads stay clear, the rushing water has the opposite effect on the garra fish.

01:50 This is the opportunity they've been waiting for.

01:57 They have a mysterious, instinctive drive to always explore upstream,

02:04 driven by the need to expand their territory.

02:11 They take whatever opportunity they can to forge into the current.

02:17 This is how the species can recolonize areas where the previous inhabitants have perished.

02:26 But this is not just fish swimming upriver.

02:30 These fish undertake an epic climb.

02:37 Their sucker mouths, which usually scrape algae from the rocks,

02:41 become anchors, securing them against the fast-flowing water.

02:51 A group inches its way up the rocks.

02:59 The fish must stay within the splash zone in order to breathe,

03:03 but stay out of the main flow to avoid being washed back downstream.

03:15 The fish can travel up to nine feet, up sheer rock faces.

03:23 For those that make it into new pools, there are fresh possibilities,

03:29 food and a new territory to colonize.

03:38 The stress of the journey is also thought to trigger their spawning behavior,

03:42 to make sure every new pool is quickly populated by the pioneers.

03:49 Their sticky eggs will settle in the gravel to stop them washing back downstream.

03:56 (Music)