Nature is so vast that we still do not know all the existing species on the globe. Recently, a strange unicorn fish was discovered hiding in a pond. What is most striking about the never-before-seen species is that it shares characteristics with the mythical equine creature, in addition to being completely blind and having no scales.
Marine life is very complex, and it is believed that we do not know the apex of what actually lives in the oceans, which are not the only places where there are aquatic ecosystems because they can also be hidden in caverns where ponds are generated. Precisely, a team of researchers was studying life in cavern ponds where fish of the genus Sinocyclocheilus endemic to China are known to inhabit, but they came across something unexpected, a never-before-seen species of unicorn fish.
In total, 76 subspecies of Sinocyclocheilus are known, most of which share characteristics with the newly discovered unicorn fish. All of them have a lack of pigmentation and scales, in addition to reduced or no vision due to living in ponds where sunlight does not reach, a process known as regressive evolution in which, through generations, individuals lose complex characteristics. But of all the species, the unicorn fish is the only one that has a horn, a characteristic that showed that it was a species never seen before.
The researchers found the unicorn fish swimming in a small pond inside a cavern in Guizhou mountain. The team collected a group of individuals for examination, unaware that it was a never-before-discovered species, but once the DNA analyses were complete, they realized that it was a new species.
[Photo: Sam Yeh/AFP]
How Is the Unicorn Fish Like?
The researchers named the unicorn fish S. longicornus, which is derived from the Latin terms longus, meaning long, and cornu, referring to the horn on its forehead. It measures between 4.1 and 5.7 inches and has two pairs of whisker-shaped chins that continually uses to orient itself in the dark. But its most amazing feature is that it possesses an unusually long unicorn-like horn, which has no clear use for researchers at this time since it does not appear in closely related species.
For now, it is not known in which situations they use their horn, although it is believed that it could be related to the fact that they live in complete darkness. The horn could help these unicorn fishes to locate themselves spatially in their habitat; however, it is not clear, because their whisker-like barbels would already serve this function.
The structure of the unicorn fish remains a mystery to its discoverers in the meantime, but they celebrate the fact of having found a never-before-seen species that also has completely unusual characteristics not observed in related species.
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera
