Meet the big shot: a new species of fish accidentally created by scientists in Hungary. It is an unusual mix of two endangered species, the American spoonbill and the Russian sturgeon.
According to a study published in the journal Genes, researchers from the Hungarian National Center for Agricultural Research and Innovation, the Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Institute said they were not trying to create a new fish when the big shot was born. Rather, they just wanted to know if the two species could be bred in captivity, and were shocked when the resulting fish actually grew into adulthood.
“This was the first successful hybridization between these two species and between members of the Acipenseridae and Polyodontidae family,” the researchers wrote.
Using gynegenesis, an asexual reproduction method that requires the presence of sperm but not the actual contribution of their DNA, the researchers said they inadvertently used spatula fish sperm to fertilize sturgeon eggs. They managed to create hundreds of descendants.
“We never wanted to play with hybridization,” co-author Dr. Attila Mozsár told The New York Times. “It was absolutely involuntary.”
Genes
Both the American spoonbill and the Russian sturgeon are critically endangered, neither of which could successfully reproduce in the wild. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, sturgeon, whose eggs are used for caviar, are “critically endangered more than any other group of species.” Habitat loss, overfishing and pollution are to blame.
Both fish are also considered “living fossils” because they have not evolved much over a long period of time.
The researchers believe that the last common ancestor between the two fish dates back to 184 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Despite evolving on opposite sides of the world, the two fish have much in common, including the intestines of the coiled valves, the skin without scales and the cartilaginous endoskeletons, the Times reports.
The strange fish hybrids exhibit traits from both species: They separated into two groups after the researchers discovered that some received much more DNA from their mother, while others had DNA that equally represented both parents.
Unfortunately, soon you won’t see any big shots in the wild. The researchers believe the offspring is infertile, a common side effect of crossbreeding.
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