Researchers have rediscovered an elusive fish species thought to be extinct for 85 years
Researchers have rediscovered a rare fish species presumed to be extinct after it was not seen for more than eight decades.
The last sighting of the Chel snakehead, or Channa amphibeus, was last recorded from specimens collected between 1918 and 1933 in the Himalayan region of India, leading scientists to believe the species had died out, according to a paper published recently in the journal Zootaxa.
MORE: Giant tubeworms part of thriving ecosystem found under the seafloor in the Pacific
But three specimens collected in 2024 -- as well as photographic evidence -- have confirmed that the species persisted over the last century despite remaining undetected. The specimens were located on the banks of the Chel River in the town of Kalimpong in West Bengal after researchers caught wind that it was being consumed by a local tribe, the paper states.
There were repeated searches for the Chel snakehead in the last several decades, wildlife biologist Forrest Galante wrote on Instagram. It took months for the researchers to locate the fish, but they were able to positively confirm its existence.
MORE: 'Starry night' toad rediscovered in Colombia after nearly 3 decades
The Chel snakehead specimens were located in the Chel River system, the ecosystem in which it is endemic, according to the paper. The freshwater species -- considered the most elusive of the snakeheads -- is known for its bright green scales and yellow stripes. It is also the largest amount of snakeheads, according to the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation, the Mumbai-based wildlife conservation involved in the rediscovery.
"The resolution of this long-standing mystery in Indian ichthyology reinforces the importance of continued exploration and highlights the persistence of biodiversity, even in species once thought lost to time," said Tejas Thackeray, founder of the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation, in a Facebook post.
Researchers have rediscovered an elusive fish species thought to be extinct for 85 years originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
The Company Helping Build the Next Space Station Is Launching to the ISS
America's most expensive government housing project cost north of $100 billion, took 13 years to build, and has been continuously occupied since 2000—yet most of the time no more than six people live there. That's because the residence in question is the International Space Station (ISS), a million-pound orbital outpost with a footprint larger than a football field and the habitable volume of a six-bedroom house, circling the Earth 250 miles overhead. Over the past 25 years, on-board astronauts have done yeoman's work in the station's six laboratory modules. But the ISS is getting old, and NASA and the 14 other partner nations that built, maintain, and operate it have plans to de-orbit it by 2030, sending it tumbling down through the atmosphere for a controlled splashdown in a remote patch of ocean. Before the ISS dies, however, it will help birth its own replacement—one that will be built and launched by the private sector, with the new modules constructed by Houston-based Axiom Space, and launch services and the Dragon spacecraft provided by SpaceX. Over the past three years, Axiom has launched three private, paying crews of four astronauts to the ISS, preparatory to the commencement of station construction. On June 10 it plans to launch its fourth mission, straightforwardly dubbed Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4)—one more milestone on the road to the first new space station module going aloft in 2027. 'It's important for the U.S. to maintain a human presence in space, and that's why I think the Axiom station is so important,' says former NASA astronaut and Axiom's director of human space flight Peggy Whitson, who commanded Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) and will command Ax-4. 'We've got to get the [new] station up and running before the ISS is decommissioned. That push for … expansion in space is important from a technology perspective [and] from a space power perspective.' Speedy but significant science Ax-4's mission will be a relatively brief 14 days—an eyeblink compared to the six months to a year that the station's long-term residents stay aboard. But as with the earlier Axiom flights, none of which went beyond 18 days, the crew will be performing a lot of solid science in the time they're aloft. 'This particular mission will comprise 60 scientific studies and activities representing 31 countries, including the U.S., India, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the UAE, and nations across Europe,' said Allen Flynt, Axiom's chief of mission services, at a May 20 press conference. 'This will be the most research…conducted on an Axiom space mission aboard the International Space Station to date.' Among the experiments to be performed will be studies of the effect of microgravity on the brain—crucial information to have in the run-up to long-term missions to the moon and Mars—as well as similar investigations of how the heart and muscles adapt to space. Also on the research manifest will be studies of eye-hand coordination, and even how to manage blood glucose in space, opening the door to future travel by astronauts with insulin-dependent diabetes. Perhaps the most ambitious work, however, will involve testing various drugs to treat cancer—work that can be dramatically accelerated if it takes place in space. 'People always say, 'Why do you go to space to look at cancer?'' says Whitson. 'Well, cancer cells proliferate faster [in microgravity], so in a very short period of time you can give them a drug and see if it's slowing them down. If you shut them off you can effectively say, 'Hey this is a very promising drug.'' During Ax-2, the crew was specifically studying colorectal cancer. This time around they will be looking at triple-negative breast cancer —an aggressive form of the disease—and should be able to finish the study even in the short time they'll be aloft. Collaboration is key The mission won't be just about the science, but about building global partnerships that go beyond the international suite of experiments the crew will perform. Axiom Space might be a U.S. company, but Whitson will be the only American aboard when Ax-4 lifts off. Joining her will be crewmembers Shubhansa Shukla, from India; Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland; and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. The mission comes after a long wait for all three countries. A Hungarian has not been in space since 2009, when paying space tourist Charles Simonyi traveled to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The last Indian citizen in space was Rakesh Sharma, who was aboard another Soyuz, which docked with Russia's Salyut 7 space station in 1984. For Poland the wait has been longest of all, dating back to 1978, when Mirosław Hermaszewski launched aboard a Soyuz. 'Private astronaut missions are a great opportunity for our member states to fly more astronauts and do more experiments aboard the International Space Station,' said Sergio Palumberi, mission manager with the European Space Agency (ESA)—which includes Hungary and Poland—at the May 20 press conference. 'ESA will be executing 17 science investigations and technological demonstrations.' 'This is more than a space mission for us,' said Orsolya Ferencz, Hungary's ministerial commissioner of space research. 'It is a strategic national effort, an expression of Hungary's commitment to sovereignty in critical technological fields and to secure a place in the rapidly evolving space economy.' The four new arrivals aboard Ax-4 will join an equally international crew of seven already living on the ISS; they include three astronauts from the U.S., three cosmonauts from Russia, and one astronaut from Japan—Takuya Onishi, who is currently station commander. During Axiom-4's trips to and from space, Whitson will be in command of her three-person crew, but when they're aboard the station, she will cede most of her authority to Onishi. 'I'm responsible for my crew and our activities on the ISS, but the crew that's already up there will be responsible for the station as a whole,' Whitson says. 'It wouldn't be appropriate for a short-term person to take over.' Building the next 'ISS' The 14-day Ax-4 mission is being flown with an eye toward a more distant goal. This flight and the previous three have been dress rehearsals both for crews and for Axiom's onsite mission control, providing critical experience working in orbit and managing activities from the ground. That patient practice will be put to use in 2027 when the first Axiom space station module goes aloft and docks with the ISS. Over the course of the following three years, four more modules will be sent up and dock with the one already there, with the new cluster serving as a semi-autonomous space station budding from the larger existing one. In 2030, not long before the ISS is deorbited, the Axiom station will undock and become its own free-floating lab. The first module, known as the payload, power, and thermal module (PPTM), will, as its name suggests, provide power, temperature control, and storage space for the new station. Following the PPTM will come one airlock module, two habitat modules, and a research and manufacturing module (RMF), where the onboard science will be performed. The RMF also includes a windowed enclosure similar to but much larger than the ISS's cupola, providing 360-degree views of the Earth below and the surrounding space. 'It's way bigger than the cupola,' says Whitson. 'It's going to be an immersive experience, where you can get your whole body inside. It will be like doing a spacewalk without having to put a spacesuit on.' Axiom does not rule out adding more modules still down the line, especially as the company attracts private sector and government customers willing to pay to have experiments run and hardware tested in microgravity. The space community has gotten spoiled in the past 25 years, with a rotating corps of international astronauts always at work, always in orbit, making their homes aboard the ISS. The station may not attract the global excitement that the old Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions did, but we will surely miss it when it's gone. Axiom Space is prepared to fill that void.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Japanese lunar lander crashes while attempting touchdown on the Moon
A private lunar lander from Japan crashed while attempting a touchdown on Friday, the latest casualty in the commercial rush to the Moon. Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission. Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft's scheduled landing on the Moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well. Takeshi Hakamada, ispace chief executive officer and founder, apologised to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for the company. Two years ago, the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the Moon's dusty surface. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions. 'This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,' Mr Hakamada told reporters. He stressed the company would press ahead with more lunar missions. A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned and the lander descended too fast, officials said. 'Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,' the company said in a written statement. Long the province of governments, the Moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than successes along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the Moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the Moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience was targeting the top of the Moon, a less treacherous place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Plans had called for the 7.5ft Resilience to beam back pictures within hours and for the lander to lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface this weekend. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sported a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa. The rover was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Japan's ispace fails second lunar landing mission
Japan'sprivate moon mission was aborted on Friday after it was presumed that the unmanned Resilience spacecraft had crashed. Tokyo-based startup ispace had launched the mission in hopes of becoming the first private company outside the United States to achieve a controlled lunar landing. The Resilience spacecraft had begun its final descent, successfully firing its main engine "as planned to begin deceleration," ispace said. Mission control reported that the craft's position was "nearly vertical," but contact was then lost. ispace stated that the spacecraft had likely failed to decelerate sufficiently to reach the speed required for a soft lunar landing. "Based on the currently available data... it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing. It is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored, so it has been decided to conclude the mission," ispace said in a statement. As of 8:00 a.m. on June 6, 2025, mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored and therefore completing Success 9 is not achievable. It has been decided to conclude the mission.'Given that there is currently no… — ispace (@ispace_inc) June 6, 2025 Before signing off, the livestream announcers said, "never quit the lunar quest." Less than two minutes before the scheduled landing, the once-celebratory gathering of 500 ispace employees, shareholders, sponsors, and government officials fell into stunned silence as contact with the spacecraft was lost. "Expectations for ispace will not waver," Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba posted on X. ispaceによる月面着陸は、残念ながら成功には至りませんが、この挑戦が持つ価値は一時的にできるものではありません。 ispaceに対する期待が揺らぐことはありません。そのためにも、すぐに課題を検証し、次なる飛躍につなげていただきたいと願っています。 — 石破茂 (@shigeruishiba) June 6, 2025 Two years ago, another lunar missionby the company had also ended in a crash. CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters he took the second failed attempt "seriously" and intended to use the outcome to inform future missions. He said they had a "strong will to move on, although we have to carefully analyze what happened." Resilience carried a four-wheeled rover built by ispace's Luxembourg subsidiary, along with five external payloads valued at a total of $16 million. The planned landing site was Mare Frigoris, a plain about 900 km (560 miles) from the moon's north pole. Lunar landings remain challenging due to the moon's rugged terrain. To date, only five nations have successfully achieved soft lunar landings: Russia, US, China, India and Japan. Private companies have recently entered the race to the moon, and ispace would have been the third such company to achieve it. The mission wanted to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to NASA for $5,000 (€4373). In January, Resilience shared a SpaceX rocket launch with Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, which touched down successfully in March. A moon landing attempt by US-based company Intuitive Machines failed in March this year. Edited by: Louis Oelofse
