Smithsonian Magazine picked its "Top Ten" ocean stories for 2020, and frankly, I had forgotten some of them, and never heard of a couple. In fact, my favorite of the ten is one of the ones I hadn't heard of.
The Top 10 Ocean Stories of 2020
Despite the importance and interest of all these stories, this is what impressed me the most:
(drum roll)
It's the sturddlefish, a cross between a sturgeon and a paddlefish. And the reason it is my favorite is that it was an accident. A scientific mistake. So if this can happen, so can Spider-Man! (Well, one can hope.)
Smithsonian Magazine explains:
"Scientists can coax sturgeon eggs to spontaneously grow without the aid of insemination by mixing the eggs with another species’ sperm. To spur sturgeon growth, researchers in Hungary used paddlefish sperm because they thought it would be unable to fuse with the sturgeon eggs. While both fish live their adult lives in coastal waters, paddlefish breed in fresh water in North America and sturgeon breed in fresh water in Russia. The species’ closest common relative existed 184 million years ago. The scientists were wrong. Hundreds of hybrids were born and at least 100 survived for several months. The nicknamed “sturddlefish” has physical characteristics of both the sturgeon and the paddlefish. They are likely sterile and the researchers don’t plan to breed any more, leaving these captive fish as truly one of a kind."
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