New revelations about an ancient fish: The secret to swimming upside down
Published:25 Sep.2022    Source:ScienceDaily
New research has shed light on a mysterious and ancient fish, one that remains one of the world's rarest -- the Coelacanth. Researchers have removed Denmark's only specimen of this primordial fish from its jar of alcohol and gained new insight into how it functions. The new knowledge could contribute to saving this critically endangered deep sea dweller.
 

The coelacanth has a special skeleton with a lot of bone mass in the head and tail, while there are almost no vertebrae. It's quite unique. The heaviest parts are at either end of the fish, which makes it easy for the fish to stand itself on its head. The balance point is an advantageous mechanism for its way of life.The researchers also discovered the precise distribution of fatty tissue in the body of the fish, including the amount in its fatty bladder, as coelacanth don't have a regular gas swim bladder like modern fish. The numbers show that the fat content correlates with the depths at which the fish live, where fat allows the fish to be neutrally buoyant and spend hardly any energy to remain hundreds of meters deep.