Scientists have discovered a new species of catfish with thorns in its face, Leslie. Desusha never expected the catfish she was looking for to be her meal, but she always had to eat dinner.
The conservation biologist at the Field Museum spends much of her time in the Amazon and orinoco river basins of northeastern South America, dragging her net through the dark sludge, looking for hook catfish before returning to camp near dusk.
With Desusha (then a phD student) and his supervising professor, Ichthyologist Jonathan of Auburn University. Amberst collaborated with local guides to prepare researchers with regional delicacies including capybaras, caimans, and even beetle catfish with suction cups.
Desusha said, "There are all kinds of dishes. I could only swallow everything. She also realized that she might have eaten some of her research goals.
Within 15 years of exploring the Orinoco River Basin and the surrounding area, Desusha and Ambrest discovered six new species of catfish, which they described in an article published in the journal Fauna Taxonomy.
In addition to being covered with hard armor, the hook catfish can also defend itself with spines on its head. When they are threatened, the spines become larger. Disusa quipped that these heavily armed hookfish have the ability to transform, like "fish superheroes."
Nathan. Luhan said: "This is the most detailed study of this catfish group, which is a very challenging research target. This study has been of great help to other researchers. He was an ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History and was not involved in the study.
Hook catfish family
Catfish are one of the most diverse fish species on Earth, and the newly discovered species bring the total number of species in the family Catfish to nearly 1,000. In addition to the spines of their heads, the males have large bulb-like tentacles around their mouths, which the researchers believe mimic the shape of the juveniles they care for.
Desusha said: "This let the female know that this male can give her good children." 」
Desusha's research work, which included the identification of all catfish in the Amazon and the Orinoco River, challenged not only the relatively difficult sites of field study, but also the catfish themselves. Hook catfish are common in the Amazon, and locals occasionally put them on the table. But different individuals of the same species can have huge differences in body size, shape, and color, while members of different species can have nearly the same appearance. What makes the study even more challenging is that many of the reference specimens in the museum were collected nearly a century ago, and years of soaking in preservatives have discolored many of the catfish's special spots, which Desusha uses to distinguish many species.
"It's difficult to do research like this. "When you have a bunch of fish in front of you, it's hard to decide how to tell [about the different species]. 」
Named after nostalgia
Back in the lab, Desusha and co-authors Anbruste, Donald A. Thompson, and co-authors Tapphorn scrutinized the details of her specimen to confirm which species were known and to find six other species that had not yet been discovered by the scientific community. These new species not only allowed Disusa to clarify the relationship between different hook catfish, but also expanded researchers' understanding of hook catfish biodiversity. Luhan and Desusha say the discovery of new species provides conservationists with more supportive information to counter the threat as the region is increasingly threatened by gold mining, hydroelectric dams, non-perpetual fisheries and agriculture.
"If you don't know what species are local, you can't give priority to conservation," Luhan said. 」
That's why Di Susha named a catfish Ancistrus saudades, derived from the Portuguese word for "sadness and nostalgia," to describe how she felt about her native Brazil going through so much change in the Amazon basin.
But that urgency also gave Desusha hope. I'm excited that a fish that survives only in one river might help prevent dams from being built.