A Fish Tale

I know believing in evolution, natural selection, and organisms adapting to their environment is not particularly in vogue these days, especially after GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker deftly debunked Darwin’s daft drivel, but allow me to reel you back towards phylogenesis just long enough to share the following story of a transformation of biblical proportions, one that begins with you hopefully tossing a ping pong ball at a county fair and ends with Carassius Auratus Humungous™; or goldfish that go from living in a small bowl to being the size of a bowling ball. It’s certainly (sea)food for thought. Scientific American: Supersized Goldfish Could Become Superinvaders. “Biologists suspect that most stormwater pond goldfish were originally introduced by humans; it is unlikely that lake goldfish made their way upstream into these isolated pools. Most fish species cannot live in the harsh and unstable conditions of stormwater ponds, where water levels fluctuate frequently with rainfall. These ponds can also be low in oxygen and have relatively warm temperatures because of their shallow depth. But goldfish have evolved a special metabolic system that can sometimes enable them to survive up to five months without oxygen.” That would be a handy trait to possess during Covid (if Covid were real).

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