World’s biggest cavefish discovered in NE

The World's biggest cavefish was discovered in North East India, the National Geographic reported.

The  newfound fish, which is blind like most cave fishes, was found in Krem Chyme cave where waterfalls cascade into a subterranean pool

There are about 250 species of subterranean fish are knownon Earth, eking out a living in a world of permanent dark and scant food. Theyare usually small, generally a few inches long, since there's usually littlefood or prey to eat.

But in an underground chamber in northeastern India, researchers have discovered a cavefish that is much bigger—growing to nearly a foot and half in length and weighing about 10 times more than any known species

Biologist Daniel Harries was the first one to see the fish during a 2019 expedition, about 300 metre from the surface. The locals and fellow cavers had earlier seen the variety but never recorded.

The finding raises many questions, such as how the fishmaintain their body size, what they feed on, and how they've adapted to live inthese caves, which are extremely extensive and deep, many of which haven't yetbeen explored. Like most other troglobites, the creature is basically blind andeyeless, though it apparently has some ability to sense light.

 The team is workingwith collaborating scientists in India, Neelesh Dahanukar and Rajeev Raghavan,to sequence its genetics and determine if it is indeed a new species. On areturn visit to the cave in January 2020 with photographer Robbie Shone,Harries and colleagues the team collected a few live fish, as well as tiny bitsof their fin, for the lab analysis.

The cave is in Jaintia Hills. This resurgence cave is currently surveyed to be 10.5 km in length, which makes it the fifth-longest cave in India. The Krem Chyme is also a river cave that requires the visitors to swim through 3.5 km long lakes formed inside the cave. There are more than 50 naturally formed dams inside the Krem Chyme, which prove to be quite a sight. The cave also has colonies of bats and cave-adapted fish.