With his epic 8 Olympic golds, Michael Phelps is definitely one of the fastest swimmers in the world. But just how fast do you think he swims? And how does Phelps stack up to the world's fastest fish? Neatorama investigates:
Though it's hard to measure the swimming speed of large fish in the
wild, most sources believe that the fastest fish is the Indo-Pacific Sailfish
(Istiophorus platypterus), that has been clocked in excess of
68 mph (110 km/h). Over short periods, they could swim even faster really, really fast. In
a series of speed trials at the Long Key Fishing Camp in Florida, one
sailfish took out 300 feet of fishing line in just 3 seconds! (Source:
Australian
Museum Fish Site).
Okay, so that's a little unfair. Let's try something slower.
A lot more research has been done on goldfish. According to Davison & Goldspink, a goldfish can be trained to swim at about 0.86 mph (1.38 km/h) Source: J. exp. Biol (1978) 74: 115-122.
For Michael Phelps, let's take his 100 m butterfly: 50.77 seconds for 100 m. That's a puny 4.4 mph (7.1 km/h) - about the speed of a brisk walk, actually, but still faster than a goldfish.
But wait a minute, you say, that's not fair since we failed to normalize the swim speed as compared to body length (Phelps, for one, is much much longer than a goldfish). No problem, it's easy enough to convert.An average goldfish is 8.5 cm, so its swim speed translates to about 4.5 Phelps is 6'4" (1.93 m) so this translates to about 1 body length/sec.
Here's the final comparison:
| Goldfish |
Phelps |
Sailfish |
|
| Absolute Speed | 0.85 mph (1.37 km/h) |
4.4 mph (7.1 km/h) |
68 mph (110 km/h) |
| Body Length sec | 4.5 |
1 |
90 |
So. There you have it. Michael Phelps. Slower than a goldfish.
In comparison, reef fish, which are slower than sailfish, have an average speed of 14 body length per second.
I'm thinking triathalon is really Phelp's sport.
-Keiko (better known as the whale in Free Willy)...when it was alive
-all those Shamu orcas
-the eight or so whale sharks in captivity
Nice try, anarchy, but those examples aren't going to enjoy the cash quite as much as Mike will.
And let me guess, they also think putting a goldfish in to a half gallon bowl is ok too right?
Boy, they go through all of that trouble to do research and don't even do proper research on goldfish who if given PROPER care can get up to a foot long (the common variety while the fancy get to 6-8 inches).
http://www.maathiyoose.com/2008/08/top-10-secrets-to-know-about-michael-phelps/
Enjoy!!!!