The African turquoise killifish might not live long — but, during development, it will stop growing and wait for better, wetter living conditions if it needs to.
If the pond the fish lives in dries up too much, killifish embryos can stop maturing for over six months. That pause can be even longer than their usual, uninterrupted lifespan. It appears that the fish emerge from these months relatively unscathed. Those embryos that put off growing live as long, and have as many offspring, as embryos that never pause, according to new research out in the journal Science.
“What is remarkable is the embryo’s ability to stop damage that would happen over time,” says study co-author Anne Brunet, a geneticist at Stanford University. The tiny tissues emerge in good condition and seem to have put off aging. By studying how the killifish genome changes for this months-long pause, researchers could one ...
