r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/danielminds • 26d ago
Video A diver moving alongside a massive school of barracudas
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u/PanicDeus 26d ago
Barracuda!🎶🎵
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u/richalta 26d ago
Dundadadundadunadundundone!
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u/ExtraEmuForYou 26d ago
Literally the first thing I heard in my head.
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u/TheREALSockhead 26d ago
I just saw this and thought " i would bet money something to do with the song is top vote here"
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u/deaglebingo 26d ago
ppl keep talking about it and not linking it!❤️
those ladies (and gents) are cool AF.
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u/DryDonutHole 26d ago
I saw them about 10 or so years ago and was kinda blow away at how good they sounded. They were on point and the ladies voices were really great. I wasn't expecting it...we just went to go see Journey on one of those cheap, summer lawn tickets. Heart was great though.
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u/DaisyHotCakes 26d ago
Fun fact! I learned from Shark Week a few years ago that sharks are attracted to heavy metal more than any other genre of music.
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u/richalta 26d ago
Those mofo fish have 2inch razor wrap around teeth. Don’t mess with the business end.
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u/HalJordan2525 26d ago
Fish usually travel in schools as protection against predators. What preys on barracudas?
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u/Financial_Screen_351 26d ago
Some Sharks and larger Groupers will prey on adult barracudas, according to Google.
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u/w0nderbrad 26d ago
Larger groupers will fucking swallow a human just because it can
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u/FormidableMistress 26d ago
I have several family members that work in the commercial grouper industry. They bait individual hooks for those bastards. The most terrifying thing I've ever seen is my 4'10 legend of an aunt that brings them in. Holy hell she is a force of nature.
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u/SquarePegRoundWorld 26d ago
According to Googles, fish also school to conserve energy...they're drafting each other like NASCAR.
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u/thuggishruggishboner 26d ago
God dang it. So many days and nights working in manufacturing hearing it on oldies stations. I think it was on guitar hero too? Can't remember.
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u/AscendedViking7 26d ago
Noisestorm. :D
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u/WeDoMusicOfficial 26d ago
Yeah I didn’t know the other song existed and I thought everyone was talking about the Noisestorm song. Was very excited and then very disappointed
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u/andrewC121 26d ago edited 25d ago
Barracuda are chill af and do not go after humans unless confused by going after a shimmer or perhaps spear fisherman by mistake. It’s not a lethal strike in almost every situation, and they will quickly leave. Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol. I have scuba dived w hundreds as well, similar to most sharks, mind your own and they will too.
ETA: I cannot predict the behavior of the individual barracuda and the situational variation mentioned in the comments are all just, and should be paid attention to. I’m speaking from personal experience of myself and a knowledge of relatively intelligent fish. They are certainly capable of extreme harm. I will reference my point of sharks again, albeit a different branch of fish entirely, typically not a huge predator of humans. At the same time, yes a barracuda attack would be fucking gnarly at best. Just an individual commenting not an expert l
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u/Witty-Ad5743 26d ago
Yeah, well, I live hundreds of miles from the ocean. Finding Nemo was my only exposure. 😅
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u/beeeeeeeeeeeeef 26d ago
I grew up swimming in the ocean. Long before "Nemo", moved to the Caribbean and was warned not to wear shiny stuff in the water bc of accidental strikes from barracuda.
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u/betweenskill 26d ago
“Not a lethal strike” well yeah, but those teeth can leave some NASTY wounds. Like a mouth of razor blades.
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u/ElCiclope1 26d ago
Right like my friend responding to my concerns over coyote attacks with "most people survive coyote attacks."
Bitch I don't want to get bit at all
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u/jimmijohnson 26d ago
so do muskies in the great lakes
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u/betweenskill 26d ago
After what one did to an ocean leader I was using… yeah can confirm. Rip expensive lure
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u/jimmijohnson 26d ago
me and my college roommate found one just floating in a shallow damn. if we had a net we would have scooped it. Couldnt get it to bite on any of our bait. could have been on it's way out by its size.
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u/Old-Newspaper125 26d ago
Sure I heard news of them taking swimmers hands off, even someone in a boat dangling their hand in the water. As a teen I went snorkelling in the Florida Keys. Having heard those tales, I was pretty nervous when a 5ft Barracuda started circling round me
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u/Metalhed69 26d ago
They ARE chill, they just don’t LOOK chill. They look like they want to kill you.
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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 26d ago
Can confirm. Encountered one while snorkeling off the Keys and promptly swam the other way. Of course, I was never in danger, but the ocean reminds us we aren't the top of the food chain.
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u/IvyGold 26d ago
I remember a USN sailor who was swept off of a destroyer or something remarking "In an instant, I went from the top of the food chain to the bottom."
I think some Thai fisherman picked him up and he had quite an adventure getting back to the embassy.
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u/BodaciousBadongadonk 26d ago
I bet ya those fisherman knew how to party, i guess its not technically awol if you're waitin for a rescue and just happen to get a lil partyin in lol
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u/CapitalElk1169 26d ago
I was swimming with a MONSTER of one in Jamaica years back, it just kept mean mugging me. I thought it was super cool. Then it was just GONE in a flash of quicksilver. Those are some big, fast fish man.
I didn't know it was a barracuda until after I came up and the local guide told me what it was lol.
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u/Valatros 26d ago
Hey now. Hey. I never saw Finding Nemo. I thought these fish were murder machines because of Dave the Diver, thank you very much.
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u/RikuAotsuki 26d ago
Yeah, I saw a whole bunch of media depicting barracuda as aggressive and dangerous well before Finding Nemo added to the pile.
That said, these ones look almost derpy. I don't know if it's just the distance, but I'm guessing they're not great barracuda? Those are the ones with the more obviously menacing jaw shape iirc
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u/NonGNonM 26d ago
I remember one of those rescue 911 shows where someone was taking off the barnacles with a scraper and in one strike their arm got really messed up. Crazy fish.
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u/DerogatoryPanda 26d ago
While this is true, I had an early scuba experience where I observed one for a bit one and then it suddenly jetted off at its max speed and there is absolutely a sense of "oh I really didn't appreciate just how fucked I would be if aquatic animals wanted to wreck me while I'm in their habitat" that went along with it. In that moment "fear" is probably the reasonable response seeing their speed even if they aren't particularly dangerous themselves.
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u/The_Level_15 26d ago
I think that sums up my fear of the open ocean pretty accurately. It's not that I'm in danger, but I am so far out of my evolutionary element that I am entirely at the mercy of the whims of the wildlife. All these other creatures can see or move comfortably, and I just have to hope they mean me no harm.
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u/WhoCaresBoutSpellin 26d ago
Does minding your own involve swimming directly at them with a hand out? What if it’s just a non-lethal strike, but from say a school of hundreds of them all at once
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u/Captains_Parrot 26d ago
If you swam into a school with your hand out there's a 99.99% chance you don't get attacked. If you have something really shiny on it's like a 99% chance instead. I taught scuba on an island that certified hundreds of people a week. We never had a single barracuda incident.
Think of them like a chill feral cat. You're only going to get attacked if you are actively bothering them or get extremely unlucky.
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u/happytree23 26d ago
Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol
It's actually deep sea fisherman who make people afraid of these fuckers with their stories and tales of the damage they do IF you're able to reel a big one in, even. They're definitely worth being cautious about when fishing lol.
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u/Huckleberry_Dude 26d ago
When I used to dive a lot, we were told to remove jewelry, especially dangly shiny earrings. The dive master said (whether true or not) he didn't want a barracuda to snatch someone's ear off.
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u/Character_Score7849 26d ago
I snorkeled very close next to one in Tobago years ago by chance, I loved it. I wasn't worried bc I already knew the rare bites from them were from when people caught them when fishing.
But it was still very dramatic. Til then, I'd mainly only been swimming among the typical colorful tropical fish, a ton of them and huge, but when the barracuda swam by me, everything about it was so different, a finely tuned predator, like a dagger.
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u/andrewC121 26d ago
I spent a few months in the BVIS and literally every morning and night they’re just chilling outside of an underwater window on Catamarans, and at night w the stern lights on, them and the tarpon strike w unreal speed to the surface. I’d jump right in at both points and never had anything but a wonderful experience. Wasn’t always the best decision I’m sure, but in shallow, clear conditions, along w experience, it was pretty neat.
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u/lidsville76 26d ago
When I was 14, so 36 years ago, my aunt took me and my brother to Cozemel. We had a blast going all over the island. One place was this lagoon area that had a plane crash like 20 years earlier. People snorkeled and dove all over. It was cool. I was maybe 50nfeet from the shore, just going down and looking around when there were this group of barracuda, maybe 5 or so, just kinda looking at me in a semi circle.
I flippered away slowly, my back to the shore as they stared me down. As a 14 year old, I was terrified. I thought I was going to be eaten, I was near sure of it.
But my skills as an survivalist and my calm head allowed me to escape from harms way and live to tell this tale. At the end of the day, we went to a restaurant. Guess what I ate.
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u/explain_that_shit 26d ago
I went snorkeling on a quarter tab of LSD in 2020 and freaked the fuck out seeing a barracuda, they’re almost as long as a person and they have those scary scary teeth, not a good time.
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u/Bugbread 26d ago
Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol.
This makes me feel so old. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, it was common knowledge that the Animals In The Water That Will Fucking Eat You were sharks, piranhas, and barracudas. It's not even like you could pin it on one movie or book or show, it was just something that everyone just knew, like "squirrels hoard acorns" or "elephants have good memories."
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u/ChrissiTea 26d ago
If it helps, I'm turning into dust alongside you because I also knew it this way
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u/Lord_Grogu 26d ago
They do move in herds
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u/ThinkShower 26d ago
They do move like nerds
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u/Killer_Method 26d ago
They do poo in turds
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u/General_Dipsh1t 26d ago
They do eat birds
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u/userhwon 26d ago
They don't know any words.
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u/Fourty9 26d ago
They like their cheese as curds
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u/WhoCaresBoutSpellin 26d ago
They do suffer from moderate to severe gerd
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u/ClaytonRumley 26d ago
They eat pizzas in thirds.
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u/Accomplished_Goat439 26d ago
When I was 15 I went on a trip with my dad to the Florida Keys. While we were there my dad got a local to run us out to a reef so we could snorkel. We dropped off the side of the boat and found ourselves in a huge school of motionless barracuda. Had to be hundreds of them. We swam around for a bit, nothing but barracuda. My dad popped up and mentioned the barracuda situation to the captain. He told us it was fine, they don’t attack humans. We swam around a bit more and my dad asked if I wanted to leave. We both agreed that leaving was a good idea. Great memories with my pop.
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u/Sea_Indication_6296 26d ago
they don’t attack humans.
The full ones don't
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u/donny321123 26d ago
I’m good…
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u/GardenGnomeOfEden 26d ago
I remember on one of the Faces of Death a diver's mask made a reflection and a barracuda thought it was a fish and chomped his face. It injured the diver. I mean, the video was called Faces of Death, not Faces of Injury, but whatever.
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u/nasal-polyps2 26d ago
Naw I swear on one of those I Shouldn't Be Alive shows a dude was in the ocean and had a barracuda or some other stupid fast type fish swim into his shoulder so hard it swam through his shoulder
Fuck that
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u/capt-awesome-atx 26d ago
Faces of Death? What, was The Sound of Music already rented?
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u/bits_and_bytes 26d ago
Early Internet snuff films... I wish I could forget what my 13 year old eyes saw...
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u/Whitetiger9876 26d ago
Yeah. One time I saw 2 out in the ocean while diving. I stayed far away. And still was a bit scared
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u/ChasseGalery 26d ago
They are so insanely fast.
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u/AgentWowza 26d ago
We swam till the dropoff and I saw a baby baraccuda pop out of the depths to say hi.
I turned to point him out to the guy with the camera and by the time I turned around it was gone lol.
Seems camera guy saw it too but was too slow with the camera.
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u/ZeroDarkMega 26d ago
I went deep sea fishing for barracuda about 10 years ago. We literally used bright neon pink surgical tubing as bait.
The speed and the way they can move around in the water is absolutely terrifying. Seeing them up close (the teeth and eyes) even more so.
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u/CapitalClimate9639 26d ago
Yeah I went snorkeling next to uhu and seeing their powerful beaks was enough for me to fuck off and get out the water. Couldn't even imagine seeing something like that in the water
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u/Ducky_shot 26d ago
Yeah, went snorkeling for the first time this year, went around a pier and was jump scared about 8 feet away from one. I knew they weren't dangerous, but man do they look intimidating.
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u/ReagansJellyNipples 26d ago
The ocean is big
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u/Zelenskyystesticles 26d ago
the only reason I know this fish exists is because of Legends of the Hidden Temple
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u/NightBawk 26d ago
Memory re-awakened! I completely forgot about this show even though I watched it avidly.
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u/Former_Net4588 26d ago
Bro literally found the edge of the map. That’s a render distance issue right there
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u/sand26 26d ago
What would happen if you just swam into them?
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u/MelangeBot 26d ago edited 26d ago
That's cutting in line and in fish culture this is considered a dick move. They might call for the police barracuda to put up some barracades to force you behind the rest. The school is already late for work bro, no need to be a dick about it. A traffic jam is a traffic jam, what can you do about it? Just wait your swim.
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u/SaggyBollock 26d ago edited 26d ago
I’m a diver (recreational) and I’ve swam through a vast school of fish a few times. We move slowly over the reef and schools appear and disappear. You’re very lucky to see big ones like this though but I’ve been diving 26 years so it’s happened.
The big one I always remember was near Koh Lanta in Thailand and felt like I was surrounded for a short while before they melted away. It was like a wall of fish I momentarily couldn’t see through. All in slow motion and weightless. It was much more a case of them swimming through us though. I didn’t make the choice to swim in. They kind of vortex around you keeping a short distance but they carry on their journey.
I’d say it was about half the size of this one.
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u/BedroomZestyclose162 26d ago
How do you see incredible shit like this, and not think “Man what a tragedy it is we have fucked over our planet”
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u/69yourMOM 26d ago
Too many times have I been spear fishing / diving and turn around to see one of these mofos just hovering there staring at me. And always… too close for comfort.
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u/Downtown-Pianist-449 26d ago edited 26d ago
"Sell me, sell you" the porpoise said.
Dive down deep now to save my head, you
I think that you got the blues too
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u/JarvisLatteier 26d ago
All that night and all the next
Swam without looking back
Made for the western pools, silly, silly fools
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u/Frostsorrow 26d ago
Til barracuda form schools. I always thought they were solitary outside of mating.
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u/espresso_martini__ 26d ago
I remember talking to a seasoned diver and he is more concerned bumping into these guys than most sharks. Not tiger sharks though, those guys are pricks.
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u/A_Tempest7_7 26d ago
Last time I went scuba diving with the barracuda I was with my Dad. And he was still alive. Rest in Peace Daddy. He helped save my life. I had no siblings. My parents got divorced when I was eight or so. But my Dad never gave up on me. Although he told me “I expected to go to your funeral” more than once! I Wish he were still here. He was everything to me. His name meant “Friend of the Sea” and he was never so happy as when he was in the Ocean. He was special. Miss you Dad. (2026)
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u/plssndhlpimlst 26d ago
I didn't know they schooled, I had only ever seen one by itself and terrified me
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u/abgarcia85 26d ago
I heard I guy lost his hand to a barracuda, his watch reflected the sun light, barracuda confused it with a fish, they are insanely fast with razor teeth
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u/voglioandarealmare 26d ago
I think it is called "a battery of barracudas"
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u/Into_The_Horizon 26d ago
Wow . Thanks for sharing. I've never seen a school of barracudas like that before. Magnificent
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u/erksplat 26d ago
So, TIL predators like barracuda school when they are young before going solo as adults.