スミソニアン博物館のインスタグラム(smithsonian) - 9月19日 06時51分

Happy Monday! A diver holds a porcupine fish at one of our marine labs in Panama.

Porcupine fish are covered in sharp spines, and when they’re harassed they inflate like prickly balloons. They crush clam shells and other mollusks in their beak-like jaws, which are so strong that it’s common to find them still intact in fossils that are millions of years old.

@smithsonianpanama researchers and colleagues have recently named three new species of porcupine fish from fossil jaws, even though the previously undescribed fish have been extinct for thousands of years.

Today, 18 species of porcupine fish live in tropical seas worldwide. This research—done by comparing fossil jaws to museum specimens and modern fish—hopes to explain how different species came to be in the Atlantic or Pacific sides of Panama.

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