What an interesting evolutionary mechanism, hardly a "mystery" as it seems thoroughly elucidated by the recent research. Aside from the mechanism, I find external asymmetry in any species that you'd expect to have determinate symmetrical morphology to be visually highly intriguing. This fish is listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_featuring_exte...
(As a 3D lifeform artist that article provides a trove of examples to riff on.)
I find the stories about fish from Lake Tanganyika interesting because of the many species of African Cichlids that came from that lake and ended up in my aquariums.
There was a time when environmentalists screamed that taking fish for our aquariums would cause their extinction.
Then, IIRC, economic development projects that were guaranteed by environmentalists to do no damage to the biodiversity of African lakes drove most of their amazing species of cichlids extinct in their natural habitat. Now they are only preserved in our aquariums, where there is an economic incentive to keep breeding them.
> economic development projects that were guaranteed by environmentalists to do no damage to the biodiversity of African lakes
Destroy nature and then blame environmentalists for it. Yep. Tells me all that I need to know
If I remember correctly environmentalists did exactly the opposite that you claim. Care to show any source for that really dusty meme?
> environmentalists screamed that taking fish for our aquariums would cause their extinction
You were clearly not listening in that class. Is taking fishes AND hybridizing those fishes in the aquariums, because all females in related species look pretty much the same and many local variants were later reclassified as new species.
And not, nobody was screaming at you. We are in 2023. Fix your boo-science complex like an adult
Thanks for sharing. I find it super fascinating that we can model macro phenomena using game theory constructs and validate them with experiments. Very cool. I’ll see if I can get hold of the paper. Cheers
(As a 3D lifeform artist that article provides a trove of examples to riff on.)