Researchers from New Jersey¹ 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 to tetrapods, or four-footed mammals and amphibians². The discovery of this capability³, not seen in any other living fishes, also has implications for understanding how the anatomy⁴ that all species need to walk on land evolved after the transition from finned⁵ to limbed appendages⁶ in the Devonian period, which began some 420 million years ago. This research is reported in a March 24 Nature Scientific Reports article, "Tetrapod-like pelvic girdle in a walking cavefish," by Brooke E. Flammang, Daphne Soares, Julie Markiewicz and Apinun Suvarnaraksha. Flammang and Soares, assistant professors in the NJIT Department of Biological Sciences, were assisted with the research by Markiewicz, an NJIT post-baccalaureate research volunteer in the Flammang lab at the university. Investigator⁷ Suvarnaraksha is a member of the Faculty⁸ of Fisheries Technology and Aquatic⁹ Resources of Maejo University in Thailand. The full text of their article is available at http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23711.

 

Speaking of the unique anatomical structures seen in the cavefish, Cryptotora thamicola, Flammang says, "It possesses morphological features that have previously¹⁰ only been attributed to tetrapods. The pelvis and vertebral column of this fish allow it to support its body weight against gravity and provide large sites for muscle attachment¹¹ for walking." With respect to evolutionary¹² significance, she adds, "This research gives us insight into the plasticity of the fish body plan and the convergent¹³ morphological features that were seen in the evolution of tetrapods."

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