Sea robins are fish with ‘the wings of a bird and multiple legs like a crab’
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Some types of sea robins, a peculiar bottom-dwelling ocean fish, use taste bud-covered legs to sense and dig up prey along the seafloor, according to new research.
Sea robins are so adept at rooting out prey as they walk along the ocean floor on their six leglike appendages that other fish follow them around in the hope of snagging some freshly uncovered prey themselves, said the authors of two new studies published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
David Kingsley, coauthor of both studies, first came across the fish in the summer of 2016 after giving a seminar at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Kingsley is the Rudy J. and Daphne Donohue Munzer Professor in the department of developmental biology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.
Before leaving to catch a flight, Kingsley stopped at a small public aquarium, where he spied sea robins and their delicate fins, which resemble the feathery wings of a bird, as well as leglike appendages.
