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Exercise 3
Read the article about the discovery of a new type of fish, and then complete the notes.
The discovery of an important little fish
When Dr. Brooke Flammang first watched a video of a new fish that
had recently been discovered in Thailand, she couldn’t believe what
she was seeing. The fish was walking. But it wasn’t the walking that
amazed her: Dr. Flammang is a scientist who studies the way fish
move, so she’s used to seeing fish that appear to ‘walk’ over rocks
or through fast, flowing water. It was how the fish was walking that
surprised her. While any other so-called walking fish jumps or slides
forward using its tail, this new fish uses its four fins to walk. In fact,
it walks exactly like a land animal with four legs, and she knew this
was very unusual. She was amazed, and knew straightaway that the discovery could be significant
as it would offer scientists a fantastic opportunity to gather information about why the fish moves in
this unique way.
The fish, which is pink and has no eyes, has only been found in eight caves in Thailand. It was
filmed by a team of scientists working there, so Dr. Flammang contacted them to ask how she could
get hold of one of the blind cave fish for her research. It turned out that only around 2000 exist in the
wild, so researching them was not going to be straightforward.
However, Dr. Flammang was determined to further investigate the behaviour of the newly discovered
fish. She had observed in the video how the fish walks and knew that this was very unusual. But
more crucially, she believed that the fish might show us what life on Earth looked like 400 million
years ago. This was when living creatures moved from the oceans to the land. Since she was not
allowed to remove the fish from the caves, she had to come up with a new way of observing them.
First, she requested help from a Thai scientist, Dr. Apinun Suvarnaraksha. Dr. Suvarnaraksha
needed to obtain special permission from the Thai government to examine the new fish and film
more detailed videos of it in the caves. These videos provided Dr. Flammang with more examples of
its unusual behaviour. ‘Amazingly, the videos showed that this fish climbs waterfalls using its body to
grip the rock. Previously I’d only seen ‘walking fish’ doing this using the force of the water to swim up
the waterfall,’ Dr. Flammang explained.
As well as filming new videos, Dr. Suvarnaraksha was able to produce a detailed image of the
inside of the new fish. This showed that some of its bones were similar to those of land animals. ‘It
seems that the fish’s skeleton is designed so that it keeps its tail straight as it walks, which is unlike
the typical tail movement of other ‘walking fish’. It really is exciting – this little fish might help us
understand how living creatures first learned to walk! And without the help of Dr. Suvarnaraksha, we
never would have made these discoveries,’ said Dr. Flammang.
Dr. Flammang believes that her experience is an example of how working in international teams and
using technology can bring great research results for scientists. ‘Our next goal is to find out whether
they are our earliest living ancestors. We’ve come up with really exciting results so far.’
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You are going to give a talk about the discovery of the new fish to your class at school.
Prepare some notes to use as the basis for your talk.
Make short notes under each heading.
11 How this newly discovered fish behaves differently from other ‘walking fish’:
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ......................................................................................................................................... [3]
12 What scientists might learn from the discovery of this new fish:
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ......................................................................................................................................... [3]
13 Why it was difficult for scientists to study this new fish:
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ......................................................................................................................................... [3]
[Total: 9]
[Turn over
