Imagine wading in the shallows at the beach and tasting mussels and clams hidden under the sand — with your feet. A new study shows fish species evolved to do just that.
The northern sea robin , Prionotus carolinus, has six "legs" which it can use to dig and "taste" the ground for prey.Several fish species such as sea robin s and gurnards have leg-like limbs that some use to walk and others use to dig.
A pair of studies published today in Current Biology show genes that help develop legs and tongues in humans are also found in fish called leopard sea robins (examined how a gene — known to have a role in limb development for several vertebrates including people, chickens, mice and other fish — splits part of its largest fins into six "legs" for several sea robin species.
"They had the body of fish, wings of a bird, legs of a crab. The fish are actually walking along the bottom of the tank." Discovering how the tbx3a gene worked in fish could help research into human conditions such as ulnar-mammary syndrome, a rare inherited disorder which affects, among other things, limb development, he added.
"They almost looked like shovels … and on the ends of those shovels were these little bumps called the papillae that look a lot like our taste buds on our tongue.The finding is just one of many insights into small-scale evolution that has already generated interest from other universities keen to take a look at sea robins.
Gurnard Genetics Evolution Spiny Gurnard Butterfly Gurnard Fish Legs Fish Fingers Fish Toes Freaky Fish
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