Dracula Fish Discovered

A new kind of fish with Dracula style fangs has been discovered...in a fish tank that researchers had been keeping for a year. The fish had been living at the London Museum of Natural History for almost 12 months before scientists realized that they were a new species. They had been collected in Burma.

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Which is your favorite movie in the Underworld trilogy? Ours is the latest, Rise of the Lychans.

The pointy fangs seen in the picture are actually not true teeth, but only bony protrusions coming from the fish's jaws. Furthermore researchers don't believe that the fangs are used for feeding, except, of course, on virgins. It is believed that the they are usually used for sparring between the males during mating and courtship exercises. The fish have been aptly dubbed the Danionella dracula.

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don't stick your fingers in that tank

Something, other than the undeniable beauty of this fish, kept bothering me about this photo.Then it hit me. The fangs aren't like Dracula's fangs at all, which are wide-set, stubby, and bat-based. These are more like snake fangs--longish and inward-curving. I'm beginning to think they should have named it Danionella kobra khan.

By Turkish Delight (not verified) on 16 Mar 2009 #permalink

The part that I find interesting is that no one realized that it was a species not previously identified for wuite some time. Is it very similar to another fish bound in the Burma area, or was it a major oversight?

It really goes to the notion that we need to be very, very careful in all the biomes we explore. Some of these crazy creatures may hold secrete beneficial to humans and/or the rest of the natural world. Truely we can learn from all things on our planet.

Hello citizens, it is my duty, as head of the United States Endangered Species Committee for the Protection of Deprecious Known Creatures of African Descent (E.S.C.P.D.K.C.A.D. for short), to inform you scholars of the unfortunate extinction of the Dracula Fish, Fishous Vampiris. As of December 17, 1942, the beautacious fish-like mammal that at one point filled our lives with admiration for the dark side of this world. Unable to swim in sunlight, this fish was doomed for decimation. The solar eclipse of December 17 proved to be too much for our poor vampiric fish to handle. The eclipse covered the sun for a brief moment of time, fooling the fish into thinking nighttime had arrived. They came out for their nightly mountain hikes only to find the sun bearing down upon their fur. They quickly fried under the heat, and were soon after eaten by cliff-jumping (and starving) Lemmings.

R.I.P. Rip Van Fish