Scientists accidentally created a new fish species

[Mike Wehner]

• Scientists working with the Russian sturgeon and American paddlefish have accidentally created a new hybrid species.
• The new hybrid was created when paddlefish sperm fertilized the sturgeon eggs, which the scientists didn't think could happen.
• The researchers will not be created any more hybrids, and the ones that are already alive will be cared for but not released into the wild.

Scientists don't usually set out to create new species of, well, anything. Generally speaking, creating new species is thought to be a risky endeavor and, of course, there are the ethical hurdles to scale as well. It's just not a good idea, but as Ian Malcolm once said, life finds a way, and researchers in Hungary seem to have spawned an entirely new fish hybrid completely on accident.

In a new study published in Genes, the researchers describe how they accidentally created a hybrid of two endangered fish species: the American paddlefish and the Russian sturgeon. The team was trying to get the sturgeon species to reproduce asexually, but that's when things went a bit off the rails.

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Scientists accidentally created a new fish species originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 21 Jul 2020 at 23:17:46 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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