Educational Science

Fish are constantly surrounded by water, but do they get thirsty? And how would they even drink? To answer these question, it's crucial to understand how water — a solvent — interacts with other substances like salt, which is a solute, across a cell membrane. Through a process called osmosis,...

Fish moms that carry young in their mouths sometimes eat their babies for breakfast

Few sights in nature are more heartwarming than that of a mother caring for her young — unless that nurturing act ends with an episode of cannibalism. Female cichlids — fish in the family Cichlidae — are mouthbrooding fish, carrying their young in their mouths first as eggs and then...

Whiskered, marble-skinned giants lurk in the murky waters of Italy's longest river. These behemoths are prized targets for anglers, but a fisher recently hooked a truly colossal individual — and it may be the biggest ever found. Alessandro Biancardi, an Italian angler, pulled an enormous, 9.4-foot-long (2.85 meters) catfish from...

Watch rare footage of a shapeshifting eel with 'remarkably full tummy' swimming in the deep sea

Ocean explorers recently stumbled upon an extremely unusual sight in the Pacific's deep sea — a rare, shapeshifting gulper eel with its most recent meal still clearly visible in its stomach. The pelican eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), also known as a gulper eel, was spotted June 20 by researchers on board...

Why are cave-dwelling eels growing skin over their left eyes? It may be evolution in action.

Moray eels that lurk in gloomy, underwater caves appear to be adjusting to the darkness by growing skin over their eyes. The newly described bean-eyed snake moray (Uropterygius cyamommatus) is the first moray eel species known to inhabit anchialine caves — caves carved into volcanic or limestone rock that are...

Ancient monster fish 'Dunk' was short and chunky, study finds

A 360 million-year-old sea monster that was once thought to be as big as a bus was actually less than half that long, but just as chunky, a new study finds. The bony fish Dunkleosteus terrelli, nicknamed Dunk, was one of many superpredators that prowled the oceans during the Devonian...

Unicorn-like blind fish discovered in dark waters deep in Chinese cave

Lurking within the dark waters of Chinese caves is a bizarre fish species that has an uncanny resemblance with mythical equine creature. The newfound fish weirdos, which researchers discovered hiding in a pitch-black pool the size of a kitchen table, have no scales or color, tiny rudimentary eyes that likely...

Why do deep-sea fish look like aliens?

Many of the fish lurking in the depths of the ocean resemble the alien villains of horror films, with gargantuan teeth, glow-in-the-dark bodies and bulging eyeballs. But why do these fish have such otherworldly features? The bizarre appearance of deep-sea fish is largely a reflection of the extreme environment they...

Piranhas swarm 8 tourists at Brazilian resort, leaving them with bloody legs and feet

A school of piranhas attacked holiday makers playing in a stream in a Brazilian resort on May 1, leaving at least eight people injured. The fish tore at the bathers' legs and feet with their razor-sharp teeth, driving them out of the water and onto a tourist beach in Tarumã-Açu,...