Dracula Fish Found in Myanmar is a New Species

March 11, 2009--While he may not vant to suck your blood, the male fish seen above does sport spooky-looking fangs that have earned it the name Danionella dracula.



Researchers at London's Natural History Museum found several of the new species (bottom) in a tank of aquarium fish. Initially museum staff had thought the 0.7-inch-long (1.7-centimeter-long) creatures, caught in Myanmar (Burma), were part of an already known, related species.



"After a year or so in captivity, they started dying," museum scientist Ralf Britz told BBC News.

"When I preserved them and looked at them under the microscope, I thought, my God, what is this, they can't be teeth."

In fact, the fangs are not true teeth—the line of fish that gave rise to D. dracula is thought to have lost teeth around 50 million years ago.

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