ABOVE: A CT scan of the Japanese grass pufferfish (Takifugu niphobles), displaying its spines and skeletal structure
GARETH FRASER
A single set of genes drives the development of pufferfish spines, zebrafish scales, mouse hair, and chicken feathers, researchers reported July 25 in iScience. The new study, conducted in the Japanese grass pufferfish (Takifugu niphobles), confirms recent findings that the same signaling pathways shape all vertebrate skin appendages but represents the first attempt to demonstrate this in such an obscure species.
“The building blocks of these structures are pretty much conserved across vertebrates,” says coauthor Gareth Fraser, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “Even these spines from this really odd, derived group of fishes, the pufferfish, still use the same set of genes that makes hair, feathers, fish scales, and shark dermal denticles.”
Pufferfish belong to the order Tetraodontiformes, a group of fish that boasts a variety ...
