JULY 26, 2017
by Chuck Bednar
For the first time in more than a
century, researchers have discovered a new species of sunfish – a creature that
could grow to nearly 10 feet (3 meters) in size and weigh at least two metric
tons, and which is described in a recent edition of the Zoological
Journal of the Linnean Society.
The previously unknown species
has been dubbed the Hoodwinker Sunfish (Mola tecta), and as Mashable explained,
it was discovered by Australian Ph. D. student Marianne Nyegaard and her
colleagues after a four-year hunt that started with samples of the creature’s
skin and DNA.
As Nyegaard explained on the
website The Conversation, she analyzed more than 150
samples of sunfish DNA as part of a population study conducted off the coast of
Bali in Indonesia as part of her doctoral research. Sequencing the genomes of
those samples revealed four distinct species of sunfish – three which were
known, and a fourth that had never been identified.
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