Science, Fish | featured news

In the hope of reconstructing a pivotal step in evolution — the colonization of land by fish that learned to walk and breathe air — researchers have decoded the genome of the coelacanth, a prehistoric-looking fish whose form closely resembles those seen in the fossils of 400 million years ago.

Every animal with bones has blood with hemoglobin, which binds with oxygen and makes the blood appear red. Every animal, that is, except one. The ocellated icefish (Chionodraco rastrospinosus) has gin-clear blood. And it has no scales. And it lives nowhere but the inky depths down to 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) in the icy waters off Antarctica.

A new report records 17,650 species living below 656 feet, the point where sunlight ceases. The findings were the latest update on a 10-year census of marine life.

Dolphins are the chefs of the seas, going through elaborate preparations to rid cuttlefish of ink and bone to produce a soft meal of calamari, scientists claim.