''Protanguilla palau'' is a
species of
eel, the
only species in the
genus ''Protanguilla'' (first eel), which is in turn the only genus in its
family, Protanguillidae. Individuals were found swimming in March 2010 in a deep underwater cave in a
fringing reef off the coast of
Palau.
[
Protanguillidae is a sister group to all other eels.][Springer, V. G. (2015). The Gill-Arch Musculature of Protanguilla, the Morphologically Most Primitive Eel (Teleostei: Anguilliformes), Compared with That of Other Putatively Primitive Extant Eels and Other Elopomorphs, 103(2), 595–620. doi: 10.1643/CI-14-152] They are monophyletic, yet also strongly synapomorphic with all other eel species. Molecular analysis shows that all other eels are also monophyletic, showing that they may have broken off directly from the Protanguillidae. for this reason it's known as a "Living Fossil."
Characteristics
The body is very small and slender, about 18 cm long.'Fossil eel' squirms into the record books
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...
, 16 August 2011. The eel has a second
premaxilla and under 90
vertebrae, features previously found only in fossilised eels. Its full set of
gill rakers in its
branchial arches has never previously been found in an eel, but is common in
bony fish
Osteichthyes (), popularly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of fish that have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes, which have skeletons primarily composed of cartilag ...
.
It is very different from all other living eels, and scientists estimate it must have diverged from the others around 200 million years ago, during the
Mesozoic era
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising ...
. It thus has not only its own species, but also its own genus and
family, as well, and has been referred to by scientists as a "
living fossil".
References
External links
Youtube video
Eels
Fish of the Pacific Ocean
Monotypic fish genera
Fish described in 2012
{{Anguilliformes-stub