The legs of this fish are made to walk - and to explore the sea floor

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Wissenschaftler entdeckten, dass der Nordmeergockelfisch mit seinen Beinen nicht nur läuft, sondern auch den Meeresboden schmeckt.
Scientists discovered that the northern seafish with its legs not only runs, but also tastes the sea floor. (Symbolbild/natur.wiki)

This fish has legs - but they don't just serve. Scientists have found that the North Sea Robin (Prionotus Carolinus) used its limbs to walk over the sea floor, as well as to palpate the sea floor after buried feed .

Research also revealed indications of how P. Carolinus converted its limbs as sensory organs in the course of his evolution. Genomic analyzes opened the evolutionary history of the legs within the wider family of See-Robins (Triglidae). The results are in two works published today 1 , 2 in current biology.

The special fish

See-robins have protruding eyes such as frogs, flowers that resemble birds, and six legs that resemble crabs. You are "the strangest and coolest fish I have ever seen," says The development biologist David Kingsley from Stanford University in California, which examines these animals.

researchers have long known that P. Carolinus' legs have special sensory skills 3 4 . der Molecular biologist Nicholas Bellono from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, notes that the supernatural hunting capabilities of the See-Robins are so efficient that others follow them and hope for leftovers. It is also known that the six legs of the fish are covered with small surveys that look like taste buds. However, scientists had not yet examined the origins of these abilities of the animal in detail.

BELLONOS team wanted to change this and finally joined Kingsley and his group. The researchers put the fish in a pelvis with mussels and amino acid capsules, all of which were buried under sediment. The fish were able to find these objects and dig out with their shovel -shaped feet. A more precise examination of these surveys, known as papillae, gave Receptor molecules, that specialized to recognize amino acids and chemicals produced by deep sea organisms.

The most interesting results came after the researchers had filled their stock of See-Robins. These fish could not find the buried food, and the researchers found that they accidentally got to a different leg of the leg: P. Evolans. The legs of this kind were narrower and had no papillae, which indicates that the legness and flavors had developed independently.

The scientists compared the genomes of 13 sea-robin species from all over the world and created an evolutionary family tree. This showed that the legs for walking were created first. Sensory organs later developed on the legs of some species.

the long-legs gen

After examining the active genes in the limbs of the animals, the researchers focused on a gene called TBX3A. Experiments showed that it plays a role in the formation of a leg where other fish have a fin. When the researchers used the CRISPR-CAS9 genetic engineering tool to mutate TBX3A in some P. Carolinus, the fish lost their papillae and the ability to dig for food.

tbx3a encodes for a kind of protein known as a transcription factor. A single transcription factor often regulates the activity of a variety of genes, which enables it to have far -reaching effects. Bellono and Kingsley find that it is clear that TBX3A plays a role in the development of legs and taste perception. However, the scientists add that they do not yet know which mutation has changed the TBX3A activity in species with sensory legs or how they have produced the new skills of the fish. As soon as you understand that, says Kingsley, researchers could theoretically Use crispr-genome-editing

"These are really important and interesting results," says Thomas Finger, cell and development biologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora. He was surprised to see that some species lacked the ability to perceive the chemical perception, but he says that the study effectively showed how this ability was able to evolve this ability by modifying an existing gene set to a new feature.

  1. Allard, C. A. H. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.cub.2024.014 (2024).

  2. Herbert, A. L. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.08.042 (2024).

  3. Silver, W. L. & Finger, T.E. J. Comp. Physiol. 154, 167–174 (1984).

  4. Bardach, J. E. & Case, J. Copeia 1965, 194–206 (1965).

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