Dracula Fish

By Guido Trombetta on 7:43 AM


If the Barreleye Fish and the Psychedelic Fish were not enough, it seems that this is the period of absurd fish discovery indeed!

This is the time of the Dracula Fish, called this way due to its two astonishing fangs. Danionella dracula - measuring 17mm (0.6in) long and part of the Cypriniform group of carp-like fishes - was found in April 2007 but has now been officially described as a new species.



Very little is known about it. But its teeth that are already enough to make it a surprising species, because none of the other 3,700 species in the Cypriniform group have any teeth in their jaws. They lost their jaw teeth about 50 million years ago in the Upper Eocene Period

Danionella dracula, however, evolved its own dracula-like teeth structures by growing them from the jaw bones rather than re-evolving jaw teeth. Infact those are not true teeth, but spiny outgrowths of bone directly from the jaws.