&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Demogorgon fish with no eyes found in cave under NASA rocket land in Alabama")
Scientists have found the demon cavefish in an Alabama cave system located directly below the Redstone Arsenal, a rocket development hub for NASA. The discovery was made in the Bobcat Cave, where several endemic life forms exist. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), Auburn University, and Mississippi State University have stumbled upon the Demogorgonichthys arcanus, which breaks down to refer to the mythological demogorgon and arcanus (secret), earning it the nickname demon cavefish.
The most eerie part of this fish is that it doesn't have eyes. While another cavefish dwelling in this region, southern cavefish (Typhlichthys subterraneus), also has no eyes, the two aren't related. What shocked researchers the most was that this is the first time they saw the demon cavefish despite the cave being monitored several times in the past 30 years. Bobcat Cave is scanned four times each year, but never before did anyone see this demon fish.
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Cavefish in Bobcat Cave
This is because it is different from the southern cavefish. "The Demon Cavefish shares its cave, and the very same pools, with the Southern Cavefish, yet the two aren't close relatives," Matthew Niemiller, lead author of the study, said. "Each found its own separate way into the underground world and lost its eyes and pigment independently, millions of years apart. It's a vivid case of convergent evolution," he said.
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Why was demon fish not seen till now?
So while scientists knew about the Southern Cavefish, they never saw the demon cavefish because it lives at much greater depth. Researchers said this is linked to the absence of a gene in it. The southern cavefish contains a rhodopsin gene, related to light sensitivity. But the newly discovered demon cavefish lacked part of this gene. This is why it resides deeper in the waters. “It may have been living down in the aquifer and only recently made its way up,” Auburn University’s Jonathan Armbruster, a co-author of the study, said.
However, he believes it is possible that it was there all this time and they never saw it. Bobcat Cave is home to many other endemic subterranean creatures, and they all seem to have been protected because the land above is under federal purview. Scientists say finding more such species in this cave will require humans to continue protecting the land. "The Demon Cavefish is a reminder that our inventories are far from finished, even in well-explored places," Niemiller said.
