The coelacanth, a bizarre giant fish dating back to the dinosaur era, lives up to 100 years and the gestation of its young lasts 5 years
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himThe celecanthus, a bizarre giant fish dating back to the dinosaur era, can live up to 100 years and the gestation of its young can last up to five years.
Celecanthus females do not reach their sexual maturity until after age 40, according to a new study, while males of this species are sexually mature between the ages of 69 and XNUMX. And, strangest of all, the researchers found that the pregnancy of these bizarre fish lasts about five years - far outstripping the (itself already very long) gestation of elephants, which lasts about three years. The fish therefore demonstrates one of the longest-lived marine species. It is characterized by a massive body that can reach two meters in length and a ton of weight at the peak of maturity. Living in the depths of the oceans, it has an incredibly slow metabolism (also common to other fish that live in these environments) which forces it to slow movements but which gives it this incredible longevity.
The celecants were said to be extinct about 400 million years ago, and instead some specimens of the species were still found alive in the 30s off the South African coast. For a long time, scientists believed that the average lifespan of these bizarre fish was around twenty years. A recent French study instead applied a technique generally used to calculate the age of fish on the market and found that these fish even live a century. In any case, given the rarity of the specimens present on earth (their species is reported as endangered by the IUCN), the study was carried out on already dead animals.
(Read: Protecting the Oceans is the real vaccine for humanity and the Planet)
At the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, 27 specimens of the species are preserved, which allowed the researchers to carry out an in-depth analysis to determine their average age starting from the observation of the scales: like the rings that form in the trunk of the tree and that demonstrate its age, even on the fish scales a very slight trace is formed every year, visible under the microscope.
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Unfortunately, the climate crisis represents a further threat for this fish already critically at risk of extinction: the rise in ocean temperatures, in fact, dangerously affects the life span of coelacanths and - considering that these animals reproduce only in age advanced - it is easy to imagine how a decrease in their life expectancy also leads to a reduction in the number of babies born.
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Fonte: Current Biology
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