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Category: Miscellaneous
Posted on: February 27, 2007 3:08 PM, by Chris
For my aquarium:
The picture's from CNN. The caption reads:
The Antarctic ice fish is one of many species documented during a 10-week expedition exploring the Antarctic sea floor. Researchers examined marine life and uncovered potentially new species below the surface of the cold Antarctic water.The ice fish has no red blood pigments or red blood cells. This adaptation to the frigid environment allows it to use less energy to pump blood through its body.
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Comments
OK, someone help a poor non-scientist with no biology since high school here: I thought the red coloration of blood was due to the oxidation of iron. How would the fish lose 'red blood pigments or red blood cells' and still respire?
Posted by: Chuck C | February 27, 2007 4:06 PM
I wondered that too. Unfortunately, I haven't the slightest idea. I just want one for my aquarium. I wonder if you can get a machine that pressurizes the aquarium and keeps it at like 35 degrees F?
Posted by: Chris | February 27, 2007 4:30 PM
Posted by: Baratos | February 27, 2007 6:52 PM
The soluability of oxygen in water goes up as temperature goes down. At near-freezing temperatures, there is enough oxigen dissolved in the water for the fish to use sea water, with a bit of "anti-freeze" (no, I don't know what it is) to get the job done without hemoglobin.
Posted by: Paul Weidler | February 27, 2007 10:54 PM
On the other side of "freezing" -- seawater doesn't freeze above something like -2 C. In any case the water in question is reported to have -1.8 C.
A little protein that mops up microscopic ice crystals, prevents them from growing, and allows the fish to excrete it over the gills or something.
Incidentally, the gene for the antifreeze protein evolved from junk DNA. That's right, a start codon and a stop codon must have appeared in a stretch of random sequence.
Posted by: David Marjanović | December 17, 2007 5:53 PM
Recalling (and reading...) this years evolutionary bio notes, that's disputable. There's a range of adaptions the fish need to overcome the loss of haemoglobin, such as no scales and rather large energy budgets for the heart, on par with mammals.
And to answer Chuck C's question, oxygen can still dissolve on the blood, but it should be at the same concentration as the surrounding water, so to get to the tissues the ice fish pump more blood around and respire through their skin.
Yes and no, the anti-freeze gene is related to a digestive tract protease, referring to notes, it's related to trypsinogen-like serine protease that underwent expansion with Thr-Ala-Ala repeat units in the middle of the gene.There's even an example (iirc) that still have protease activity, from teh notes;
"Possibly the most exciting finding has been the discovery of an evolutionary intermediate, transcriptionally active chimaeric gene that encode both an AFGP polyprotein and the protease in D. mawsoni."
Posted by: Nick Sullivan | December 18, 2007 3:52 AM
looks like a dragon alligator fish to me
Posted by: Banana Man | May 23, 2008 10:10 AM
It looks so cute!!!!!!
Posted by: Cutiegirl | November 18, 2008 9:04 AM
Im doing my history project on the Ice Fish
Posted by: Coconuts | November 19, 2008 7:29 AM