A fish with a body that is resistant to freezing temperatures has been caught by researchers in a bath of cold water.
The ocean currents are usually below 0 degrees Celsius off the coast of East Greenland.
The blood of fish that are used to the tropics can be frozen because of the cold. The polar fish have something to hide. A lot of people have antifreeze in their veins.
The variegated snailfish (Liparis gibbus) was found to be packed to the gills with anti-freeze.
Some animals have evolved amazing machinery that prevents them from freezing, like the antifreeze proteins, which prevent ice crystals from forming.
We already knew that this tiny snailfish, which lives in extremely cold waters, produced a lot of antifreeze proteins, but we didn't realize how much effort it was putting into making them.
The fish in question, L. gibbus, is also known as a polka-dot snailfish.
It is a fairly unremarkable species on the surface. It is full of surprises on the inside.
A variegated snailfish, the first polar fish ever reported to biofluoresce, and the first example of a single species fluorescing in two colors, was discovered in 2019.
Another secret of the snailfish has been found by the research.
Researchers found a few transcripts that code for antifreeze-like proteins, all of which were high expression.
One transcript was very high up in the top 1 percent.
A transcript is anRNA copy of a part of DNA. Instructions are given on how to make certain proteins.
The expression of the antifreeze transcripts is high. They are important for survival in cold weather.
Many other polar and sub polar fish, as well as some reptiles, insects and plants, have antifreeze binding to ice.
Ice grains are stopped from growing too large or from building up inside cells in fish.
The most expressed antifreeze-likeProtein in snailfish is relatively weak compared to other types of antifreezeProtein, but it could still play an important role in keeping fish biology functioning
The snailfish need a certain amount of temperature resistance in order to survive in the bitter waters.
While some of the antifreeze proteins might not be powerful enough to keep ice grains in the blood from growing, they could help transport unsaturated lipids, which need certain temperatures when traveling through vessels.
According to the authors, their findings among snailfish raises the possibility that weak or combinatorial antifreeze activity could be beneficial to the fish.
It's a good thing now.
Since the mid-20th century, temperatures have increased twice as fast in the Arctic as in mid-latitudes and some studies predict that if the sea ice decline continues, in the summer the ocean will be mostly ice-free.
Our study theorizes that with warming ocean temperatures, ice-dwelling specialists such as this snailfish may face increased competition from more temperate species that were previously unable to survive at these higher northern latitudes.
It may not be around for a long time. What will happen to the fish in its shadow?
There was a study published.
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