Boxed up to go: the seemingly unwieldy shape of a fish is anything but a drag.

Publication: Natural History

Publication Date: 01-OCT-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Natural History Magazine, Inc.

Until recently I would have bet I could tell a fast fish from a slow one by looking at the placement of its fins and the shape of its body. Boxfishes, with their fins at the corners of their "boxy" bodies, would not have made my list of speedsters on either count. But it turns out that boxfishes are fast, stable, and amazingly maneuverable swimmers--so much so as to inspire human designers.

Boxfishes get their name from the rectangular (or sometimes five-sided) shell of bony armor on the front two-thirds of their bodies. The eyes, mouth, and fins poke through holes in the covering, but otherwise the fish's body surface is an uninterrupted mosaic of hexagonal tiles of bone.

The edges of the bony box act...

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