Meet the Lumpsuckers. Shedd’s Newcomer Is a Fish That Can Barely Swim, Is Covered in Teeth

Meet the Lumpsuckers. Shedd’s Newcomer Is a Fish That Can Barely Swim, Is Covered in Teeth

Source: wttw

5/6/2022

Credit: Shedd Aquarium

The Shedd Aquarium recently welcomed a group of Pacific spiny lumpsuckers, a fish so odd, the fact that it’s bad at swimming is only maybe the third-weirdest thing about it.

The first-weirdest would be that it’s covered in teeth instead of scales — hence the “lump” in lumpsucker.

Second-weirdest: Its pelvic fins have evolved into a suction cup — hence the “sucker” in lumpsucker.

This so-ugly-its-adorable species has been placed in the Shedd’s Polar Play Zone where, even with competition from perennial attention hogging penguins, the lumpsuckers are bound to turn heads.

Let’s meet the newcomers.

Scales serve as a sort of armor for fish. Lumpsuckers (Eumicrotremus orbis) take that concept a step further, sporting spiny protrusions that were once thought to be made of keratin — the same substance found in human hair and nails — but recent research has revealed to be enamel. “Lumpsuckers are covered in teeth!” University of Washington scientist Karly Cohen, who co-authored the study, told WTTW News.

In that way, lumpsuckers resemble sharks, whose skin is blanketed with flat V-shaped dermal denticles (aka, “tiny skin teeth”). That’s where the similarity between the two fish ends, though. Denticles decrease drag so sharks can swim faster. Whereas lumpsuckers, well ...

Pacific spiny lumpsucker

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