Recently, a new family of fish was discovered in the groundwater of southern India, an important event for biologists.
The new fish family is named dragon snake fish because of its eel-like long body. These primitive creatures belong to the taxon “living fossils,” and researchers believe they diverged from their relatives more than a hundred million years ago.
Taxonomic families are more diverse than genera and species, so the discovery of a new family is rare. Lead researcher Ralf Britz, ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Collection, said: “We think this is the most exciting discovery of the fish world in the past decade.
Of the two species in this family, one is called the Gollum snakehead, inspired by the underground character in The Lord of the Rings. Britz commented that the family’s common name was appropriate because “anyone who sees a picture of a fish resembles a dragon in some way.”
The homeland of fish, the Western Ghats of southern India is home to a rich biodiversity with ten species of fish living underground in aquifers. This underground reserve provides 6 million springs for millions of people, which could pose a threat to the newly discovered unknown species that live there.
The discovery began in early 2018 when Rajeev Raghavan, a fish researcher at the University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies in Kerala, noticed a strange photo of a fish posted on a social media account. of an Indian man. After informing Britz of the news, Britz and colleagues traveled to India to find more specimens.
In May 2019, an initial study identified this fish as a new species and genus called Gollum snakehead. Not long after, another species called Mahabali snakehead was found in that genus based on a single specimen.
Snakehead fish are also seen in the rice fields north of Kochi, a city in Kerala. After analyzing the anatomy and genetics of these fish, Britz believes that these fish diverged from snakeheads of the Channidae family 120 million years ago.
Have you seen this primitive fish before? Do you know any species like them? Write your opinion in the comments below!
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education