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Imagine living in perpetual darkness in an alien world where you have to find food quickly by feel or starve for months at a time. The limestone caverns of Mexico’s Sierra del Abra Tanchipa rainforest contain deep cisterns cloaked in utter blackness. This is where researchers at the University of Cincinnati traveled to find a little fish (Astyanax mexicanus) that has evolved to feast or endure famine entombed hundreds of feet below the ground. Pictured here, a micro CT scan shows differences in bone structure between a surface fish, left, and a cavefish. The eye orbit has collapsed and the jaws are more pronounced in the cavefish, among other differences.
Image credit: Amanda Powers
