Blind cavefish's strange evolution

• Autores: Michael Le Page
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3148, 2017, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A Mexican cavefish has evolved to have no eyes--and how it did so has been hailed as evidence that the standard view of evolution may need revising. Over the past few million years, blind forms of Astyanax mexicanus have evolved in caves. Maintaining the ability to see uses lots of energy, so the loss of eyes is a big advantage for animals living in the dark. Aniket Gore of the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and his colleagues haven't found any disabling changes in the DNA sequences of eye development genes in the cavefish. Instead, the genes have been switched off by the addition of methyl groups onto the DNA--an epigenetic change.