Eels Rare, 200 Million Year-Old

World News - A new species of eel species found in the darkness of underwater caves. This is a "living fossil" dazzling similar to the first eels, which swim about 200 million years ago, says some biologists Wednesday (08/17/2011).

The findings of these strange happened last year at a depth of 35 meters in the cave corals off the coast of an island in the states of Palau, Western Pacific, said the biologists in the British journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Small brown fish that have some anatomical characteristics of modern eel," the report said.

Most of the 819 species of animals were grouped into 19 families. However, these eels eels have many signs of primitive life in the early Mesozoic era, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The similarities include the head of a large and unbalanced, short compact body, gill-like collar open, light on the tail fin and the tip of the jaw bone called the premaxilla.

The findings were quite remarkable that eels were not only respected as a separate species, Protoanguilla Palau, but the animal is also to fill the only vacant place in the newly created taxonomic family, Protoanguillidae.

The name was first derived from the Greek word "protos", meaning first, and the Latin word for eel, Anguilla. The findings were made in March last year by a team led by Masaki Miya from the Natural History Museum and Institute in Chiba, Japan.

Using nets and light, they collect eight samples, as many as six to nine centimeters long, and conduct DNA testing to assess where the fish was in the history of genetics eel.

"So far, the island of Palau is only found in one location, but the animal may have a territory much broader distribution," the study said.

The term "living fossil" was given by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species. The term is used to describe the species, which has survived for millions of years, by exploiting niches that are very stable, so they face little pressure to evolve.