Eyeless catfish has finally received its own identity. It's been almost 40 years since scientists caught two specimens of catfish from the river near Ciudad Guyana, Venezuela during the US-Venezuelan Orinoco Delta Expeditions between 1978 and 1979. The catfish is not more than the size of an inch and the most special thing about the Catfish is, it doesn't have any eyes.
Now, after four decades of its discovery, two scientists from Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University started research on this barely studied species. After a couple of research scientists officially named this blind creature as Micromyzon Orinoco. They have announced the name at the official journal of Drexel University named Drexel Now.
Lead researcher of the study and the emeritus professor of Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. John Lundberg said in a statement,“We knew what these fish were upon capture. But the devil is in the details”. researchers caught two specimens of catfish and those fishes were kept in the Ichthyology Collection of the Academy.
According to Science Science Daily, scientists took so much time to examine and compare with the known species because they were only able to catch two samples. Tiago Carvalho from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, who was also connected with the research, able to describe the fish with help from ichthyological collaborators based in California, Alabama, and Brazil.
Those fishes were very small in size, even not more than an inch. The larger specimens were only 15.6 millimeters(mm) and the smallest one was less than 15mm. That is one of the main reason why researchers were only able to catch only two specimens. The nets they used were not meshed enough to trap those fishes.
The second most problematic thing was their habitat. They could be found at the bottom of South America's deep, big rivers. It is hard to reach sunlight at this depth. As they live in the dark water which is an almost pigments condition, so they don’t need eyes to live life. Lundberg explained that in this environment it is hard to develop eyes. Research says they belong to the family of Aspredinidae (banjo catfishes). sometimes Micromyzon Orinoco uses to hide beneath the sand bed of the river basin.
