Thoughts
on Cryptid evolution part two.
This recent article caught my attention:
‘Jumping’ genes let
fish move from sea to fresh water
One of the most important omega-3s is
docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an essential compound for animal health. DHA is
abundant in marine ecosystems but is scarce in freshwater environments. In
saltwater, various algae that comprise the diet of fish produce DHA, but it can
also be manufactured in small amounts by fish themselves.Given how necessary
DHA is, how then do marine fish species colonise freshwater ecosystems –
something that has happened repeatedly over evolutionary history?Lead author
Asano Ishikawa of the National Institute of Genetics and the Graduate
University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), in Shizuoka, Japan and a team of
international scientists set out to discover the answer.
The team noted that the marine fish known as the
three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) had successfully colonised
freshwater habitats many times and in many continents over its evolutionary
past.
Intriguingly,
jumping genes, known more properly as transposons, might be the cause of the
repetition of Fads2 in the genome
of the three-spined stickleback and thus their ability to adapt to freshwater
habitats.Transposons, say Jesse N. Weber and Wenfei Tong of the University of
Alaska, in the US, “are repetitive sequences that can insert themselves, and
any DNA in between them, into other parts of the genome”.This metabolic gene then, might be one of the key
elements that has facilitated the adaptive radiation of fish species from
marine to freshwater habitats.
Read full article here : https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/jumping-genes-let-fish-move-from-sea-to-fresh-water
If
some marine creatures can change to be
freshwater creatures could this mean there may be fresh water Octopii? The Oklahoma
Octopus creature springs to mind. It has always been thought that it could not
exist as fresh water octopii are unknown but perhaps this species had the
jumping genes to adapt?
Read about it here :https://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2010/06/more-on-oklahoma-octopus-creature.html
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