‘Golden’ cave creature — with ‘large’ eyes — discovered in China. See the new species
In the center of a village in south-central China, scientists may have discovered evolution in action.
Researchers conducting fish surveys in the waterways of Guizhou Province between 2012 and 2020 searched the water of caves in the center of Gaowu Village, according to a study published Feb. 24 in the peer-reviewed journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.
Inside the caves they found a fish nearly 6 inches long with an elongated body, according to the study.
The scaleless animal may look like any other fish species, but researchers noted it had “significantly larger eyes” than other similar fish they had seen before.
This was a new species.
Sinocyclocheilus xingrenensis, or the Xingren golden-lined fish, has a “golden yellow” body with a “slightly translucent white” dorsal fin and black gills, according to the study.
Black markings dot the fish, researchers said, with a “relatively large black spot” at the back of the tail fin.
There are two pairs of barbels, or the fleshy, whisker-like protrusions found on some fish, on the new species’ face, according to the study.
Its large eyes and scaleless body are notable not only to establish the fish as a new species, but also how the fish interacts with its environment.
“(The Xingren golden-lined fish) is found only in caves near Xingren City,” researchers said. This means the species would spend its life in a dark environment.
“Using the time divergence of S. xiejiahuai (a related species) as a reference, the loss of these scales occurred centrally after the Pleistocene (about 2.58 million years ago). This suggests that scale degeneration may not be very ancient, ranging from early to late Pleistocene,” researchers said. “This is similar to the degeneration or loss of eyes of species within the genus Sinocyclocheilus during the Pleistocene.”
Researchers said this means losing scales is a relatively recent evolutionary adaptation, just in the past few million years, and other cave-related adaptations may also be recent on the evolutionary time scale.
“Thus, together with the eyes and scales, we hypothesize that the new species may be undergoing a gradual evolutionary process towards caves,” researchers concluded.
Gaowu Village is outside Xingren City in south-central China.
The research team includes Ming-Yuan Xiao, Jia-Jia Wang, Tao Luo, Jia-Jun Zhou, Ning Xiao and Jiang Zhou.
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 1:33 PM with the headline "‘Golden’ cave creature — with ‘large’ eyes — discovered in China. See the new species."
