AENIGMACHANNA GOLLUM

Oct. 27, 2020

A 100 million-year-old fish has been discovered in Kerala which is named after the dark and conflicted character of JRR Tolkien’s epic saga movie ‘Lord of the Rings’.

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‘Aenigmachanna gollum’ belongs to an old family of fish, called dragon snakeheads, which retains its primitive characteristics after all these millennia.
It looks like a dragon, swims like an eel, and has remained hidden for a hundred million years.
Besides the Gollum, a sister species has also been discovered, called ‘Aenigmachanna mahabali’.
The discovery of a new family of fish is very rare. The dragon snakeheads have evaded scientists till now because they live in subterranean aquifers and come to the surface only after heavy flooding from rain.
The lack of evolution can be seen in the shortened swim bladder of the dragon snakeheads as well as fewer vertebrae with ribs. These indicate that the family is less specialised than regular snakeheads.
The family also has eyes and a reddish brown pigmentation, which is unusual as most subterranean fish are pale and have no eyes.