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The world ’s oldest aquarium Pisces , alungfish named Methuselah , may in reality be decade older than researchers originally guess and may even be over 100 years old , a new study chance .
Methuselah is a female Australian lungfish ( Neoceratodus forsteri ) that resides at Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco , California . She first arrived at the aquarium in 1938 after being institutionalize to the U.S. along with more than 200 other fish from Fiji and Australia .
The Australian lungfish “Methuselah” swims in her tank at Steinhart Aquarium in California. She was believed to be 84 years old but a new study suggests she could be over 100.
Aquarium staff have never been sure how old Methuselah is , but until now the best dead reckoning was that she is 84 year erstwhile , which makes her the oldest known fish in captivity . ( In the Bible , Methuselah was a man who reputedly hold up to be 969 old age old . )
The older Pisces , who loves stomach wipe and is hand - feed figs by her doting steward , shows no signs of slowing down , which has added to the confusion about her geezerhood . So researcher decide to work out exactly how erstwhile she is using a " DNA age clock . "
In the study , researchers compare Methuselah’sDNAto the genetic textile of other Australian lungfish to run out how much wear and buck her deoxyribonucleic acid had amass . The issue suggest that she is most likely years 92 , but the level of doubt with this type of experimentation means she could be up to 101 twelvemonth honest-to-goodness . The discipline will be published by and by this year .
bear on : How do fish breathe underwater ?
" Although we fuck Methuselah come to us in the recent 1930s , there was no method for determining her age at that time,“Charles Delbeek , curator of aquarium projects at Steinhart Aquarium , allege in astatement . It ’s " incredibly exciting " to have a better understanding of her actual age , he contribute .
The researchers liken the DNA of 30 Australian lungfish from captivity and the wild , including two other lungfish at the Steinhart Aquarium . The team analyzed the amount ofmethylationin the Pisces ' genetic cloth . Methylation is a biological process by which methyl groups — a carbon atom reverberate to three hydrogen molecule — are added to the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule . From this , they were capable to act upon out how long it would have taken for Methuselah to build up the turn of methyl groups found in her DNA .
Methuselah being hand-fed by her keepers at Steinhart Aquarium.
The research worker are unsure how long Methuselah could hold up for , but as more somebody are try out , the desoxyribonucleic acid clock for the species will become more accurate and assist unravel this closed book , study co - authorDavid Roberts , a research worker at the Australian River Institute at Griffith University , say in the financial statement . But regardless of how long she will live for , there are no known lungfish older than Methuselah , he added .
pertain : Do Pisces get hungry ?
In the wild , Australian lungfish are found exclusively in a subset of river in Queensland , Australia . These rivers can be extremely unstable : During dry periods , the rivers can stagnate , which foreshorten the grade of available oxygen in the piss . When breathing underwater becomes too difficult , the Pisces the Fishes are open of swim to the surface and breathing melodic line through a exclusive lung , hence their name , according to theAustralian Museum .
Lungfish are often send for " last fossil " because they have remained relatively unchanged for million of years . The oldest dodo of a lungfish from the genusNeoceratodusdates back to around 380 million years during theDevonian period(419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago ) , according to the Australian Museum .
However , the mintage ' future is becoming more unsealed . Australian lungfish are threatened by human building projects , such as dams , that have neuter their home ground . They are currently list as threaten by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) Red List of Threatened Species .
— majuscule ashen - shark - sized ancient fish discovered by accident from fossilized lung
— Ancient toothless ' eel ' is your former known antecedent
— Giant ancient fish that likely predate on humans ' ancestors unearthed in South Africa
The researchers hope that the fresh DNA age clock can be an efficacious peter in assist to conserve the ancient species .
" Accurately knowing the ages of Pisces the Fishes in a population , including the maximal age , is lively for their direction , " study trail authorBenjamin Mayne , a molecular biologist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO ) in Australia , said in the statement . " This tell us just how long a metal money can pull round and reproduce in the wild , which is decisive for simulate population viability and procreative potential for a species . "
