Latest Cave fish Stories
Researchers are first to show ancient trans-oceanic relationship for vertebrate cave animals A team of researchers from Louisiana State University and the American Museum of Natural History has discovered that two groups of blind cave fishes on opposite sides of the Indian Ocean are each other's closest relatives. Through comprehensive DNA analysis, the researchers determined that these eyeless fishes, one group from Madagascar and the other from similar subterranean habitats in Australia,...
The blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) have not only lost their sight but have adapted to perpetual darkness by also losing their pigment (albinism) and having altered sleep patterns. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that the cavefish are an example of convergent evolution, with several populations repeatedly, and independently, losing their sight and pigmentation. The blind cavefish and the surface dwelling Mexican...
Cave life is known to favor the evolution of a variety of traits, including blindness and loss of eyes, loss of pigmentation, and changes in metabolism and feeding behavior. Now researchers reporting online on April 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have added sleeplessness to that list."Cave-adapted fish sleep less"”much less"”than closely related surface fish," said Richard Borowsky of New York University. "In some ways, their sleep phenotypes are similar to...
University of Maryland biologists show how evolutionary changes helped compensate for the loss of vision in Mexican blind cavefishUniversity of Maryland biologists have identified how changes in both behavior and genetics led to the evolution of the Mexican blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) from its sighted, surface-dwelling ancestor. In research published in the August 12, 2010 online edition of the journal Current Biology, Professor William Jeffery, together with postdoctoral associates...
For the first time, an earthquake was recorded live in Devils Hole, home to the only population of a critically endangered pupfish species.To most people in the southwestern U.S., the April 4 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake felt like a rocking of the ground. But on a group of inch-long fish that exist nowhere else on Earth outside of "Devils Hole," a crack in the ground in Nevada's Mojave Desert, it unleashed a veritable tsunami.University of Arizona researchers were able to catch the...
By Keith Rogers By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Tiny neon-blue pupfish that are struggling to survive in a spring- fed cave in Nye County have rebounded this fall to 126 adult fish, 34 more than last fall's count and the highest number recorded since 2004, a federal biologist said Wednesday. "We're feeling pretty good," said Bob Williams, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor for Nevada. "We're feeling like we're at least maintaining the population. There is still lots and...
By Randal C. Archibold No doubt, it is hard to be a fish in a desert. But, to the dismay and bafflement of scientists, the Devils Hole pupfish, a quick-darting iridescent blue minnow, are veering toward extinction. Maybe this should not be surprising, considering their home: a hellishly hot, spring-fed pool of undetermined depth in the middle of one of the hottest places on earth. The fish, for tens of thousands of years, have lived here and only here, in an isolated patch under the...
38 fragile pupfish remain as experts scratch heads, mystery's surface AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. -- It's 110 degrees, hardly a heat wave for Death Valley. And in a small, bathtub-warm pool below a steep, rocky incline, small fish appear to be at play, darting and chasing each other through patches of algae. These are Devils Hole pupfish and, aside from the strangeness of finding fish in the middle of North America's harshest desert, they're about as remarkable to the naked eye as a fat tadpole....
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Scientists trying to study the endangered Devils Hole pupfish near Death Valley inadvertently nudged the endangered fish closer to extinction. About 80 of the inch-long silvery pupfish died in traps set last year in Devils Hole, a limestone cavern about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists said Monday. The total killed could be a third or more of the adult fish left alive in the wild, officials told The Las...
Latest Cave fish Reference Libraries
The Devil's Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis, is an endangered species of fish native to Devil's Hole, a geothermal (92°F), aquifer-fed pool within a limestone cavern in the Amargosa Desert of Nevada east of Death Valley. It is the smallest desert pupfish species, averaging .75 in (19 mm) in length. Physical Description Devil's Hole pupfish are less than .98 in (2.5 cm) long and resemble other pupfish in shape. They lack pelvic fins and have large heads and long anal fins. Breeding...
Astyanax jordani is a freshwater fish of the Characin family (family Characidae) of order Characiformes, native to Mexico. It is often referred to by its local Spanish name Sardina Ciega but is more commonly called the Cave tetra. A blind cave fish, A. jordani is a recent evolution from the Mexican tetra (A. mexicanus). While it can be confused with the blind cave form of A. mexicanus, it evolved separately from the surface form, and is considered a different species. (IUCN, however,...
The Northern cavefish or Northern blindfish, Amblyopsis spelea, is found in caves through Kentucky and southern Indiana. It is listed as a threatened species in the United States and the IUCN lists the species as vulnerable. The White River, flowing east to west south of Bedford, Indiana, delimits the northern range of Amblyopsis spelea. These fish are not found in caves north of the White River.
The Ozark cavefish, Amblyopsis rosae, is a small subterranean freshwater fish native to the United States. It has been listed as a threatened species in the United States since 1984; the IUCN lists the species as vulnerable. The Ozark cavefish is pinkish-white and reaches a maximum length of 2 in (5 cm). The head is flattened, and it has a slightly protruding lower jaw. The fish has no pelvic fin; the dorsal and anal fins are farther back than on most fish. The Ozark cavefish has only...
