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A fresh coinage of piranha - like fish has been chance upon in the Amazon River after secretly masquerade as another , nearly monovular metal money for almost 200 years . Scientists have call the newfound fish after the dark-skinned lord Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien ’s phantasy epic " The Lord of the Rings . "
However , the Pisces is nowhere virtually as scary as its sinister moniker mean .
The new fish was named after a stripe on its side, which looks looks strikingly similar to the “Eye of Sauron."
The new identify mintage , Myloplus sauron , is a pacu — a close relation of piranhas that are often confused for the iconic freshwater fish . Researchers discoveredM. sauronwhile studying the nearly very speciesM. schomburgkii , which was first discovered in the Amazon in 1841 but has mostly been ignored by scientists since then .
In a new field , print June 10 in the journalNeotropical Ichthyology , scientists performed a genetic analysis of theM. schomburgkiipopulation , which revealed that it was actually made up of three distinct species : M. schomburgkii , M. sauronandM. aylans . After closely see the fish , the researchers also noticed well-nigh imperceptible physiological differences between the three specie , including the number of vertebra and dorsal fin rays , and the shape of the anal retentive fins in female person .
M. sauron , which was described alongsideM.aylansin the new study , is named for a black ring on its side . This chevron , which is also present onM. schomburgkiiandM. aylans , bears a striking resemblance to the " Eye of Sauron " — a mammoth fiery eye controlled by the titulary villain .
Pacus are often mistaken for piranhas but almost all of them have a vegetarian diet.
" Its pattern expect a lot like the Eye of Sauron , especially with the orange patches on its eubstance , " study carbon monoxide gas - authorRupert Collins , the senior curator of Fish at the Natural History Museum in London , said in astatement . " As soon as one of my colleagues came up with the name for this fish , we knew it was perfect for it . "
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Pacus and piranhas , which are both in the family Serrasalmidae , are often believed to be strong-growing , bloody-minded predators . But a majority of both groups are actually omnivore and prefer a primarily works - free-base diet . Most pacus , for example , have flatten , human - like teeththat facilitate them break down plant matter rather than to pull through anatomy .
Most pacu species have flattened human-like teeth that help them munch on plants.
Even the purely carnivorous species of piranhas are not as strong-growing as most people think — a misconceptionfueled in part by President Theodore Roosevelt , who wrote in 1913that piranhas were the " most ferocious Pisces in the human race " after seeing a demonstration of the Pisces the Fishes tearing the bod off a cow in a matter of minutes during a trip to Brazil . However , what Roosevelt actually saw was a grouping of piranhas that had been purposefully rounded up and starved to whip them into a alimentation fury .
Despite the similarities between the three pacu species listed in the novel study , researchers are unsure how closely related the three fish are . It is possible that they could have all descended from a late single ascendant . But it is also possible that they are distantly related and all evolved to count the same because this gave them the best chance of endurance in their environment — a phenomenon make out as convergent evolution .
" There was n’t enough evidence to propose whether these three species all descend from one common ascendent , or whether they acquire convergently , " Collins said .
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As a outcome , it is potential thatM. sauronandM. aylanscould be moved into different genera if they are afterward found to be more closely related to other species , researchers wrote .
researcher also identified a potential fourth pacu species in the Tapajós River — a tributary that flows alongside the Amazon River — which had bombastic black office instead of stripes on its side . However , the genetic differences between these fish andM. schomburgkiiwere " delimitation , " Collins enounce . Therefore , they are currently being judge as a sub - population ofM. schomburgkii .
