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is Ictalurus nebulosus to be our next blind catfish


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#1 Guest_CATfishTONY_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 08:48 AM

here is the old story.http://www.jstor.org/pss/1441445
is this do to limited gene pool from original stock?
or are the fish moving into under ground springs and no longer need to see?

#2 Michael Wolfe

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 09:50 AM

here is the old story.http://www.jstor.org/pss/1441445
is this do to limited gene pool from original stock?
or are the fish moving into under ground springs and no longer need to see?

Well according to recent threads... we can't really know if this is a species or not without checking their diapers... and maybe they lost their eyes while traveling from some remote location in a tornado and rained down in this particular lake... where they then hybridized with green sunfish... and became the dominate species in this habitat...
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#3 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 10:44 AM

It made me wonder if the lake had any unusual chemical pollutants. I heard of such things creating mutations in frogs.

I am not surprised a brown bullhead can survive without eyes. In my tank the sunnies and sleeper goby do not bully them like they do the other fish, they have sharp spines, and they have such a strong array of senses they can even taste at a distance if what i read is right.

#4 Guest_mywan_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 02:38 AM

Well according to recent threads... we can't really know if this is a species or not without checking their diapers... and maybe they lost their eyes while traveling from some remote location in a tornado and rained down in this particular lake... where they then hybridized with green sunfish... and became the dominate species in this habitat...

:laugh:

If the lack of eyes do not result in death or failure to breed, i.e., a survival disadvantage, then the survival of a genetic abnormality does not necessarily indicate any lack of genetic diversity. Even in the event of low genetic diversity it does not represent a cause of genetic abnormality, only the overrepresentation of negative variants. Genetic variants are normal in all populations of any level of genetic diversity.

Note what the abstract said:

The lake is boggy with some overhanging banks. Functional eyes seem to be of little or no selective value to catfish in this habitat.


So apparently it is normal mutation events which under other circumstances would have been a disadvantage and dies out. But because of the lack of selective value of eyes, like in caves, the vestiges of eye genes result in unusual variations of eye expression.

#5 Guest_joemueller_*

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Posted 20 June 2012 - 12:59 AM

its evolution right? I mean if you believe in that sort of thing. catfish don't need eyes period. The only catfish that sorta uses their eyes is the channel. Maybe mother nature is phasing the visual option out. As long as mine don't decide to disappear.



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