Post #14837

Proteus: "Human Fish" 100 years old. Underground waters are his dark home The European proteus is probably the most mysterious animal in Europe. In the 17th century, people believed that proteas were baby dragons, which floods sometimes carried out from their secret underground hiding places, where dragon eggs matured. In the 19th century, the southern Slavs called them “human fish” - because of their pale and thin skin, through which the vessels are visible. Well, today scientists know that these are almost ordinary amphibians. If you don’t pay attention to their ability to fast for 10 years in a row, see light with their skin and navigate by magnetic fields! Once upon a time, from 8 to 20 million years ago, proteas, colloquially called olmas, were common tailed amphibians living in the Dnar Highlands, a mountain system in the northwestern Balkan Peninsula. But several of them ended up in limestone caves, in lakes of clean and oxygen-rich, but very cold water. There they settled. Time and the habitat of the Proteas were not spared, and the generally ordinary salamanders turned into something with a snake-like body, a short tail, thin limbs and deathly pale skin. And bright red gills bloomed around their necks, which provide oxygen to underground amphibians. Well, the strangest thing is that this is not an adult. Proteus spends its entire life at the larval stage, and, by the way, it lives up to 100 years! This phenomenon is called neoteny, and it is very rare, although not unique. Due to a random mutation, the olm larvae learned to reproduce on their own right in the child’s body, and the need for adults disappeared. It disappeared so long ago that it is no longer possible to cause them to transform into an adult. European proteas, like surface salamanders, feed on snails, insect larvae, shrimp and small crustaceans. However, it is very difficult to get food in poor caves. So much so that they have developed some kind of abnormal resistance to hunger. A few weeks after their last snack, their already slow metabolism becomes extremely slow. Observations carried out from 2010 to 2018 clearly showed that a starving proteus is able to sit in one place for up to 7 years! No risk of death from exhaustion. If you don’t believe this figure now, then that’s okay; I myself can’t wrap my head around it. As well as the fact that this is not the limit. In a controlled experimental environment, proteas can survive without food for up to 10 years. Just imagine: you were born, learned to walk and talk, graduated from kindergarten, went to school and studied there for 3 years, and the proteus hasn’t even had breakfast yet. One might think that their such low hunting activity is due to complete blindness - the eyes of strange creatures have long been overgrown with skin - however, there are two errors in this sentence. Proteas do not need eyes to hunt, and they are not blind, although they do not see in the usual sense. Despite the complete