Sometimes we
need to be reminded that every creature is a unique surprise when first
encountered. Yet this one is surely a
weird one by any count. What caused this
to occur is presently not obvious and may prove difficult.
Thus
describing the likely lifeway of some of our large cryptids is the most
important speculation one can make to sort out these creatures. Otherwise we are simply blind.
Here we do not
even know where to start.
'Alien'
Catfish Baffles Scientists
By Elizabeth Palermo, Live Science
Contributor | May 13, 2014 06:38pm ET
Updated on May 15, at 8:58 a.m. ET.
Here, a close-up scanned image of the bony
structures in the toothy face of the catfish calledKryptoglanis
shajii that lives in the Western Ghats mountains in India.
Credit: Mark L. Riccio, Cornell University BRC CT Imaging Facility
Credit: Mark L. Riccio, Cornell University BRC CT Imaging Facility
A small, toothy fish, which researchers say
resembles the terrifying creature from the movie "Alien," is turning
out to be a big mystery for the scientists who study it.
Kryptoglanis shajii is a tiny,
subterranean catfish with a number of defining skeletal features, including a bulging
lower jaw similar to a bulldog's. The fish's strange, bony face has baffled
researchers, who have been unable to classify the odd species.
Humans rarely catch sight of the tiny
catfish, and it inhabits only one area in the world: the Western Ghats
mountain range in Kerala, India. Though the fish lives underground, it has been known to emerge
occasionally in the springs, wells and flooded rice paddies of the region.
The subterranean dweller is so elusive that
scientists didn't categorize it as a new species until 2011. At that time, John
Lundberg, emeritus curator of ichthyology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Drexel University in Philadelphia, also began taking a closer look at the new breed of fish.
"The more we looked at the skeleton,
the stranger it got," Lundberg, Drexel's resident fish zoologist and a
professor in the university's School of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement.
"The characteristics of this animal are just so different that we have a
hard time fitting it into the family tree of catfishes."
From the outside, Kryptoglanis shajii looks
similar to other catfish, but a closer look inside the fish yields some
surprising discoveries, Lundberg said. He and his colleagues used digital
radiography and high-definition CAT scans to study Kryptoglanis' bone
structure, finding that the fish is missing several bony elements.
That discovery alone was not enough to cause
a stir among the experts, who explain that many subterranean fish lack some of
the bones possessed by others of their species. What did surprise the
researchers, however, was that the shapes of some of Kryptoglanis' bones
were utterly unique among fishes of any species.
Numerous individual bones in the catfish's
face are modified, giving it a compressed front end with a jutting lower jaw —
similar to a bulldog's snout. The tiny fish also possesses four rows of conical,
sharp-tipped teeth, the researchers said.
Lundberg speculates that these multiple,
unique bone structures in one part of the fish's body could mean that there is
a functional purpose behind all the strangeness.
"In dogs, that was the result of selective
breeding," Lundberg said. "In Kryptoglanis, we don't know yet what in
their natural evolution would have led to this modified shape."
The researchers seem to have ruled out the
possibility that the catfish's unusual mug resulted from a highly specialized
diet. That's because, based on the fish's teeth and subterranean habitat, it most likely eats a relatively typical
diet of small invertebrates and insect larvae, Lundberg said. Video footage of
live specimens at feeding time also suggests that this tiny fish — at 4 inches
(10 centimeters) — is perfectly capable of eating such food.
The mystery of Kryptoglanis has received
attention from other researchers, as well. Ralf Britz, a fish researcher at the
Natural History Museum of London, led a separate study of the species' unique
bone structure. The research was published in the March 2014 issue of the
journal of Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.
Unlike Lundberg's study, which used
high-resolution X-ray computed tomography to create three-dimensional CAT scan
images of the fish's skeleton, Britz and his team utilized a technique known as clearing and
staining. This method of visualizing a skeleton uses chemicals to render the
fish's soft tissues in clear glass and its bones and cartilage in contrasting,
colored glass.
Yet, much about the catfish remains
mysterious. For instance, neither study was able to definitively conclude why
Kryptoglanis is so unique among fishes, or what species it counts as its
closest relatives.
The new study, led by Lundberg, is published
in the 2014 issue of theProceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia.
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