Imagine living in perpetual darkness in an alien world where you have to find food quickly by touch or starve for months at a time.
Plants & Animals
May 24, 2017
0
188
After millions of years living in constant darkness, a species of blind cavefish found only in Somalia has lost an ancient system of DNA repair. That DNA repair system, found in organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, ...
Archaeology
Oct 11, 2018
0
150
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 ...
Evolution
Jan 22, 2012
47
0
We all do it; we all need it—humans and animals alike. Sleep is an essential behavior shared by nearly all animals and disruption of this process is associated with an array of physiological and behavioral deficits. Although ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 23, 2017
5
824
Researchers trying to better understand and treat blood-sugar disorders such as type 2 diabetes can look for new clues in odd little fish that dwell in Mexican caves.
Evolution
Mar 21, 2018
0
558
A study of weakly electric fishes from a remote area of the Brazilian Amazon Basin has not only offered a unique window into how an incredibly rare fish has adapted to life in caves over tens of thousands of years, it has ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 9, 2020
0
828
Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have shown that well-developed eyes come at a surprising cost to other organ systems. The study involving Mexican cavefish shows that the visual system can require between 5% and ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 11, 2015
3
576
Cavefish have obvious adaptations such as missing eyes and pale colors that demonstrate how they evolved over millennia in a dark, subterranean world.
Plants & Animals
Mar 11, 2022
1
318
Researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have identified unique anatomical features in a species of blind, walking cavefish in Thailand that enable the fish to walk and climb waterfalls in a manner comparable ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 24, 2016
32
872
University 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.
Plants & Animals
Sep 14, 2010
2
0
