Mudskippers store air in their burrows
Abstract
Mudskipper fishes can maintain their metabolism while they are confined in mudflat burrows filled with oxygen-depleted water, and their eggs, deposited in the burrows, can develop under severely hypoxic conditions. How they cope with such conditions has been unclear. We report here that a mudskipper species Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Fig. 1) accumulates air in its burrows. This behaviour seems to be an adaptation to provide oxygen for burrow-dwelling fish and for embryos developing in the burrows.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- January 1998
- DOI:
- 10.1038/34560
- Bibcode:
- 1998Natur.391..237I