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CrowdScience: Why are fish fish-shaped?

Discussion & Talk

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30/09/2022 GMT

Why are fish fish-shaped?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why are fish fish-shaped?

There are over 30, 000 species of fish – are they really all a similar shape?

There are over 30, 000 species of fish yet we still think of them all having roughly the same shape. But is that really the case?

There are over 30,000 species of fish – that’s more than all the species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals combined. But despite the sheer diversity of life on Earth, we still tend to think of all fish in roughly the same way: with an oblong scaley body, a tail and pairs of fins. Why? And is that really the case? 

Crowdscience listener and pet fish-owner Lauria asked us to dive into the depths of this aquatic world to investigate why fish are shaped the way they are. Do we just think that fish are all the same because we are land-dwelling? 

Presenter Anand Jagatia makes a splash exploring the fascinating story of fish evolution, how they came to be such a different shape from mammals and even how some mammals have evolved to be more like fish.

Produced by Hannah Fisher and presented by Anand Jagatia for the BBC World Service. 

Contributors:
Professor Frank Fish – Professor of Biology, West Chester University
Dr Carla McCabe - Lecturer in Sport & Exercise Biomechanics
Dr Andrew Knapp – postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum, London 

Image: School of fish in shape of fish. Credit: Getty Images

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