Spotting a wispy sea dragon, floating amongst the seaweed, embellished with leaf-like adornments ruffling in swaying ocean currents, is truly a sight to behold.
sea dragon, both of which are found in cool waters off the southernmost coasts of Australia.
What's less clear is how they came to look so distinctive, however. So for this study, the University of Oregon researchers teamed up with scientists from the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Tennessee Aquarium, to analyze what samples they had from sea dragons raised in captivity.
Compared to two distant relatives, zebrafish and sticklebacks, the genomes of leafy and weedy sea dragons are missing a chunk of genes that play indispensable roles in other vertebrates, containing instructions on how to form facial structures, teeth, limbs, and even parts of the central nervous system.
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