Discovering new fish species without eyes in Vietnam

The International Plant and Animal Conservation (FFI) said it has discovered an eye-free cave-dwelling fish and scales on a small island in Vietnam's famous scenic area - the Bay. Ha Long, LiveScience reported.

The new eyeless fish and scales have the scientific name Draconectes narinosus.

The new fish belongs to the family of catfish, whose scientific name is Draconectes narinosus. In Greek, 'drakon' means dragon and 'nectes' means swimming and 'narinosus' comes from Latin, which is understood as 'a person with a big nose'. According to experts, no eyes and scales are evolutionary traits that help them adapt to the habitat in the dark, deep of limestone caves.

D.narinosus lives in freshwater environment of the underground cave system on the island 200m from the sea and cannot swim to the surrounding saltwater area. Scientists say they were surprised to learn that this fish lives in a very small island of Ha Long Bay, where there are long and narrow sections, the widest part is only about 400m.

The team is still continuing to look for similar species of catfish in nearby islands to see if this is the only fish that survives in its limbs.

This discovery details were published in the recent issue of Revue suisse de Zoologie magazine.

Reference: Livescience