Kryptolebias marmoratus found living in trees


Kryptolebias marmoratus found living in trees

The swamp fish that loves to live in trees
19 October 2007
Elie Dolgin
Magazine issue 2626

Something fishy is happening in the mangrove forests of the western Atlantic. A fish is living in the trees.

The mangrove killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) is a tiny fish that lives in ephemeral pools of water around the roots of mangroves. When these dry up the 100-milligram fish can survive for months in moist spots on land. Being stranded high and dry makes it hard to find a mate, but fortunately the killifish doesn't need a partner to reproduce. It is the only known hermaphrodite vertebrate that is self-fertilising.

Now biologists wading through muddy mangrove swamps in Belize and Florida have discovered another exceptional adaptation. Near dried-up pools, they found hundreds of killifish lined up end to end, like peas in a pod, inside the tracks carved out by insects in rotting logs. "They really don't meet standard behavioural criteria for fish," says Scott Taylor of the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered ...

http://www.newscientist.com/iplogin.ns;jsessionid=GJBGFEDICPMA

This fish made the news








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Richard J. Sexton