READ

Introducing the mysterious Blind Cave Eel

Think the quokka is WA's favourite animal? Think again.
Introducing the mysterious Blind Cave Eel
Image credit: WA Museum

Western Australia has embraced the charismatic quokka as our tourism mascot.

But here at Particle, we think the quokka is missing a sidekick. Given that the quokka has the adorable factor covered, we’d like to suggest a sidekick with a bit of mystery.

Introducing the Blind Cave Eel.

Video credit: WA Museum

While this guy may not be a looker, it is a bit of an enigma and the world’s longest cavefish.

It lives in underground caves across the Pilbara—Barrow Island off the coast of Dampier, Cape Range near Exmouth and Bungaroo near Pannawonica.

Strangely, these cave systems are separated by hundreds of kilometres.

Cape range, Barrow Island and Pannawonica marked on a map of North-West Australia
View Larger

The same blind, freshwater eel is found in three areas separated by hundreds of kilometres of salt water and desert.

Image credit: Alex Dook / Google Maps
The same blind, freshwater eel is found in three areas separated by hundreds of kilometres of salt water and desert.

So how did the Blind Cave Eel end up in completely isolated environments? (We’d like to say it hitched a ride in the pouch of a helpful quokka, but this just isn’t true.)

Dr Glenn Moore, Curator of Fishes at the Western Australian Museum, says for 60 years the blind cave eel was only known to exist in one location.

“But we now know they’re in other locations, separated by distances we thought they were incapable of crossing,” Glenn says.

So how did the eel cross the … desert?

Blind Cave Eels live in underground freshwater pockets surrounded by inhospitable saltwater. They’re effectively marooned on a desert island.

But how did they get on those islands in the first place?

The reason the Blind Cave Eel populations are genetically similar yet physically independent is down to geography and geology, Glenn says.

Pink, eyeless Blind Cave Eel swims with jaw agape
Image credit: WA Museum

Imagine 50 people are picnicking in a park. Suddenly, it starts raining and they scramble to shelter under the trees.

While it was sunny, people were walking around. But in the rain, separate groups are stuck under trees.

That’s what happened with the Blind Cave Eels. A change in their environment restricted their habitat.

But instead of a downpour restricting the Blind Cave Eels, it was probably rising sea levels, Glenn says.

“We think that, in times of lower sea levels, the subterranean Blind Cave Eel was able to travel more widely,” he says.

“But in higher sea levels, they’re restricted to their freshwater pockets.”

Branching out

Remember the groups of people sheltering in the park? If they have been sheltering for a long time, you might expect the groups to act a little differently to each other.

That’s what happened to the Blind Cave Eels. They’re still the same species, but the populations have genetic differences.

“All populations have genetic differences, but the one located at Bungaroo is the most different,” Glenn says.

The Bungaroo population has been independent for the longest, so it’s had the longest time to change.

View Larger

Dr Glenn Moore

Image credit: WA Museum
Dr Glenn Moore

“While we don’t consider them separate species, we could say they’re all on independent evolutionary pathways,” Glenn says.

“If these populations are kept independent of each other, we’d expect them to become new species, given long enough.”

It’s evolutionary

The Blind Cave Eel is a great example of modern-day evolution, and who knows what their future holds?

In 10 million years, they may have evolved to be cuter than the quokka … although that does seem like a bit of a stretch.

Alex Dook
About the author
Alex Dook
Raised by a physics teacher and a university professor, Alex had no choice but to be a science nerd. He has worked in science communication in both Perth and Melbourne, mainly setting things on fire for delighted children. Alex is now a freelance science writer and content creator.
View articles
Raised by a physics teacher and a university professor, Alex had no choice but to be a science nerd. He has worked in science communication in both Perth and Melbourne, mainly setting things on fire for delighted children. Alex is now a freelance science writer and content creator.
View articles

NEXT ARTICLE

We've got chemistry, let's take it to the next level!

Get the latest WA science news delivered to your inbox, every fortnight.

Republish

Creative Commons Logo

Republishing our content

We want our stories to be shared and seen by as many people as possible.

Therefore, unless it says otherwise, copyright on the stories on Particle belongs to Scitech and they are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This allows you to republish our articles online or in print for free. You just need to credit us and link to us, and you can’t edit our material or sell it separately.

Using the ‘republish’ button on our website is the easiest way to meet our guidelines.

Guidelines

You cannot edit the article.

When republishing, you have to credit our authors, ideally in the byline. You have to credit Particle with a link back to the original publication on Particle.

If you’re republishing online, you must use our pageview counter, link to us and include links from our story. Our page view counter is a small pixel-ping (invisible to the eye) that allows us to know when our content is republished. It’s a condition of our guidelines that you include our counter. If you use the ‘republish’ then you’ll capture our page counter.

If you’re republishing in print, please email us to let us so we know about it (we get very proud to see our work republished) and you must include the Particle logo next to the credits. Download logo here.

If you wish to republish all our stories, please contact us directly to discuss this opportunity.

Images

Most of the images used on Particle are copyright of the photographer who made them.

It is your responsibility to confirm that you’re licensed to republish images in our articles.

Video

All Particle videos can be accessed through YouTube under the Standard YouTube Licence.

The Standard YouTube licence

  1. This licence is ‘All Rights Reserved’, granting provisions for YouTube to display the content, and YouTube’s visitors to stream the content. This means that the content may be streamed from YouTube but specifically forbids downloading, adaptation, and redistribution, except where otherwise licensed. When uploading your content to YouTube it will automatically use the Standard YouTube licence. You can check this by clicking on Advanced Settings and looking at the dropdown box ‘License and rights ownership’.
  2. When a user is uploading a video he has license options that he can choose from. The first option is “standard YouTube License” which means that you grant the broadcasting rights to YouTube. This essentially means that your video can only be accessed from YouTube for watching purpose and cannot be reproduced or distributed in any other form without your consent.

Contact

For more information about using our content, email us: particle@scitech.org.au

Copy this HTML into your CMS
Press Ctrl+C to copy