Join us for our August regular meeting held virtually via Zoom.
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Presenter:
Matthew L. Niemiller, Ph.D.
Director of the Cave Bio Lab at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Co-owner of Niemiller Nature LLC
Title: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Discovery of the Demon Cavefish
Abstract: For over a century, the North American cavefishes of the family Amblyopsidae have been a model system for life in perpetual darkness, making it remarkable to find an entirely new genus and species hiding in Bobcat Cave on Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, a cave monitored almost monthly for more than three decades. We describe it as Demogorgonichthys arcanus, the "Demon Cavefish," blind, unpigmented, and, in life, a translucent electric blue. Combining morphology, micro-CT, and DNA data, we show that it is deeply divergent from all known amblyopsids. Remarkably, it lives alongside the Southern Cavefish (Typhlichthys subterraneus) yet is not its sister. The two lost their eyes independently, as an independent pattern of rhodopsin mutations confirms. The discovery challenges assumptions about survey completeness in subterranean ecosystems, highlights access-restricted lands as inadvertent biodiversity refugia, and underscores the need for groundwater conservation, a reminder that even well-studied karst still hides much in plain sight.
Bio: Matthew L. Niemiller, Ph. D., is Director of the Cave Biology Lab at The University of Alabama in Huntsville and co-owner of Niemiller Nature LLC. A biospeleologist and evolutionary biologist, his research explores the systemics, evolution, and conservation of cave- and groundwater-adapted organisms across North American, integrating fieldwork, molecular tools such as environmental DNA, and conservation genetics. Beyond his research, he is a dedicated communicator working to reveal the hidden biodiversity of caves and karst to audiences worldwide.
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Join Zoom Meeting
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