I don’t know if any of you have come across this, but this was a fascinating thing to me.
It appears that a fish, more specifically a species of minnow was discovered in Myanmar. Now you say so what a minnow? Well this little minnow, named Danionella Dracula, has fangs! Yes, even though the fish is tiny, usually measuring in at around one inch, it seems to have spent quite a time redeveloping its vampire looking teeth from earlier in its evolution. Quite a time being approximately 30 million years (or so they say).
All other species in the Cypriniform group (around 3,700) lost their teeth 50 million years ago. Unfortunately, it’s once again a male dominated world, at least in the Danionella Dracula Minnow’s world anyway. Only males get graced with fangs. They are thought to use them to guard their territory, nudging and biting other Dracula minnow intruders.
Another characteristic of this fish, hence another reason it was named Dracula, is developmental truncation, which means it has an “eternally young” physical development resulting in 40 fewer bones than its relatives.
While the size of the fish isn’t very impressive, I sure would hate to find one of these little critters attached to my finger or maybe toe? Ouch!
