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Fish Walks, Climbs Waterfalls Like a Salamander (discovery.com)

Posted by msmash on from the climb-like-no-one-is-watching dept.

An anonymous reader links us to an article on Discovery News: A species of cavefish in Thailand has been documented walking and climbing waterfalls in a manner similar to four-footed creatures such as salamanders, in a find researchers call "huge" in evolutionary terms. In a press release Brooke E. Flammang, an assistant professor of biological sciences at NJIT, said that the fish has anatomical features previously known only in tetrapods -- four-limbed vertebrates that include amphibians and reptiles. "What these fish do, in complete darkness, is stick to the rock and climb waterfalls, completely underwater."

5 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Welecome by Nkwe · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one welcome our rock climbing fish overlords.

    1. Re:Welecome by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because Darwinism is opposite of christianity? While many major Christian religions fully accept the theory of evolution

      According to a fairly recent poll, 42% of the Americans believe that God created humans, and another 31% believe in evolution, but with God guiding the process. Only 19% believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. So, while major Christian religions may fully accept the theory, most of its followers do not.

  2. Re:I fully expect... by fishscene · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a FAR better video than whatever was linked in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Someone went into a cave and filmed the fish. What I *liked* about it is it shows it is actually crawling/walking/scaling instead of maybe using its fins as possible spoilers to generate a downward force to keep it on the rock as water flows over it. Maybe someone can post this video instead to the article instead?

  3. Completely New Species..? by red+crab · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Magur fish or Clarias Magur first described in 1822, with habitat in Ganga and Brahmaputra river basins in northern and northeastern India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh is very commonly known to have walking capabilities. The link mentions this fish as "Commercial pond aquaculture of the catfish, Clarias batrachus (Linnaeus), commonly known as "pIa duk dan" in Thailand, "ikan lele" in Indonesia, and walking catfish in the U.S.A., first developed in Thailand in the late 1950s". This newly discovered species has climbing capabilities, so this might be just related to walking fish with more developed muscles.

    1. Re:Completely New Species..? by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Insightful
      It's not the first walking fish, but this one is newly discovered, and has unique way of walking. Quote the abstract:

      In all other fishes, the pelvic bones are suspended in a muscular sling or loosely attached to the pectoral girdle anteriorly. In contrast, the pelvic girdle of Cryptotora is a large, broad puboischiadic plate that is joined to the iliac process of a hypertrophied sacral rib; fusion of these bones in tetrapods creates an acetabulum.