Thursday, January 29, 2009, 11:49 pm
Shape-shifting fish fools scientists
* 29 January 2009
IT IS the very opposite of family resemblance: three groups of strikingly different-looking fish that turn out to be males, females and young of the same family.
Tapetails (pictured, top) live in shallow waters and are named for the long streamers that trail behind them. Whalefish and bignoses are both deep-sea fish, but while whalefish (middle) lack scales and have huge jaws, bignoses (bottom) have long nasal organs and immobile jaws, and live off energy stored in their gigantic livers.
Nobody thought these groups were related. "The differences were so extreme," says marine biologist David Johnson of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Then a study found that whalefish and tapetail mitochondrial DNA is virtually identical, prompting Johnson to re-examine museum specimens. This revealed one in the process of changing from a tapetail into a whalefish. Specimens intermediate between tapetails and bignoses were collected in 2007, and together with more DNA analysis this proved that the three families are really one (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0722).
A "tapetail" larva grows up to be a "whalefish" female or "bignose" male. Johnson claims this is the most extreme metamorphosis ever seen in a vertebrate.
MORE ARTICLES:
Evolution: The next 200 years
Our Unknown Solar System
How do we know the LHC really is safe?
JUST had supper, was kind of hungry since I ate pretty early and little for dinner today. Yummy. Anyway, it just came to me maybe I should post some other videos today. Haven't been posting any Music Videos, not to mention it was eons since I last post anything chinese too. So I thought I should embed two MVs today. Two videos that just came to my mind immediately.
Bringing you 林宥嘉-伯樂 and 吴克群 - 牵牵牵手.
Hope you'd like them. Enjoy.
林宥嘉-伯樂 MV
吴克群 - 牵牵牵手 MV
Ja-na!~
Leaving everything to time and for nature to take its place.
PS: I personally prefer 牵牵牵手 MV. Very touching. T.T
* 29 January 2009
IT IS the very opposite of family resemblance: three groups of strikingly different-looking fish that turn out to be males, females and young of the same family.
Tapetails (pictured, top) live in shallow waters and are named for the long streamers that trail behind them. Whalefish and bignoses are both deep-sea fish, but while whalefish (middle) lack scales and have huge jaws, bignoses (bottom) have long nasal organs and immobile jaws, and live off energy stored in their gigantic livers.
Nobody thought these groups were related. "The differences were so extreme," says marine biologist David Johnson of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Then a study found that whalefish and tapetail mitochondrial DNA is virtually identical, prompting Johnson to re-examine museum specimens. This revealed one in the process of changing from a tapetail into a whalefish. Specimens intermediate between tapetails and bignoses were collected in 2007, and together with more DNA analysis this proved that the three families are really one (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0722).
A "tapetail" larva grows up to be a "whalefish" female or "bignose" male. Johnson claims this is the most extreme metamorphosis ever seen in a vertebrate.
MORE ARTICLES:
Evolution: The next 200 years
Our Unknown Solar System
How do we know the LHC really is safe?
JUST had supper, was kind of hungry since I ate pretty early and little for dinner today. Yummy. Anyway, it just came to me maybe I should post some other videos today. Haven't been posting any Music Videos, not to mention it was eons since I last post anything chinese too. So I thought I should embed two MVs today. Two videos that just came to my mind immediately.
Bringing you 林宥嘉-伯樂 and 吴克群 - 牵牵牵手.
Hope you'd like them. Enjoy.
林宥嘉-伯樂 MV
吴克群 - 牵牵牵手 MV
Ja-na!~
Leaving everything to time and for nature to take its place.
PS: I personally prefer 牵牵牵手 MV. Very touching. T.T
