You Know What Really Sucks?

The title here definitely has my husband’s sense of humor, and the answer is partly no, not just a vaccum cleaner. The Astyanax mexicanus does. Does that sound fishy to you? Well, it should because that’s exactly what it is – the Mexican blind cavefish. Scientists have discovered that this particular fish can turn a blind eye to GPS because it sucks water into its mouth and the resulting currents that bounce off nearby objects are detected by sense organs in its flanks. Roi Holzman of Tel Aviv University in Israel and his colleagues recorded how often captive cavefish sucked in water. They found that when the fish approached an object, it sucked at up to six times the normal rate and when in an unknown area swam more slowly. It is true that all fish suck (according to my husband who only occasionally likes fish when they are fried), and have these sensory organs in their flanks but this is the first time it’s been discovered that a fish, the Mexican blind cavefish, actually uses them (sucking and sensory organs in its flanks) in tandem for navigation. Some may think that they’re just actually sucking to get nutrients from the water but Mexican blind cave fish eats bat guano (maybe that’s why my husband has an aversion to eating fish).