Scientists create a new fish species while trying to save another one

23 Jul 2020

Scientists create a new fish species while trying to save another one

Scientists create a new fish species while trying to save another oneA group of Hungarian aquatic scientists had been working to save the Russian sturgeon, an endangered fish. This fish is critically endangered due to overfishing for caviar. Caviar is an exotic food item consisting of fish eggs.

However, instead, they created a new fish species by accident!

This new fish species is a hybrid (mixture) of the American paddlefish and the Russian sturgeon. The fish has not been formally named yet. For now, they are calling it "sturddlefish".

Both the sturgeon and paddlefish belong to the same group and both provide tasty caviar. However, they have very different feeding habits, physical characteristics and live in different places. The American paddlefish lives in the Mississippi River Basin, US while the Russian sturgeon lives in Russian rivers.

Previous experiments to combine the two had not worked.

What does the "sturddlefish" look like?

They look slightly different from the Russian sturgeon, but most of them have the same ridged back and short snout.

Scientists created two types of the new hybrid fish. One of them is one part paddlefish, two parts sturgeon, while the other is one part paddlefish, four parts sturgeon.

For now, the "sturddlefish" are living at a Hungarian research lab. There are about one hundred of them.

In the future, this new fish could help fish farming and industry. But even if they are not useful, their creation itself is a biological marvel.

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A group of Hungarian aquatic scientists had been working to save the Russian sturgeon, an endangered fish. This fish is critically endangered due to overfishing […]

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