A group of rowers were in for a huge surprise when they were coming down a lake one morning.
The Washington University in St. Louis freshmen were practicing on the Creve Coeur Lake in Missouri when flying Asian carps started to attack them!
We’ve seen animals comically attack people and give them a scare before, but this fish encounter is one of the greatest.
Varsity rower Benjamin Rosenbaum, who was close by at the time, started taping the unexpected and frightening moment.
“I saw a few fish jump up,” he told Good Morning America. “I had an idea of what was about to happen, so I walked down to the dock and filmed it.”
According to the morning news station, these freshwater fish “have an exaggerated startle response, and so that’s why they come out leaping like that.”
While these rowers left their boat with just a lingering fish smell, there have been cases where flying fish have in fact injured people. For example, a much larger fish, the sturgeon, has knocked boaters overboard, left some unconscious, and even broken bones.
"These fish don't mean any harm — it's not an attack so much as a collision," an expert named Major Bruce Hamlin told The Telegraph. “They've got a kind of armor plating that makes their bodies tough. It's as if you were riding a motorcycle at 35 mph and someone threw a 100-lb concrete block in your face."
And, if this bizarre phenomenon isn't startling enough, make sure you turn up your volume and listen to Rosenbaum's commentary — I couldn't stop laughing!
Watch the video below and please SHARE this funny moment with your friends!
