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I was in a certain (nameless) chain petstore yesterday looking for a new bio-wheel, and while I was trying to find it (they didn't have it), my husband and kids were looking at the fish. My husband comes up to me and says (he knows VERY little about fish)

Honey, what are these fish? They look blind?

And I look up to see an entire tank of at least 20 or 30 fish and EVERY one of them had their eyes plucked out. I believe they were tetras, but we quickly left. It was too sad, they were swimming around without eyeballs! It was so horrible. The tanks there were in deplorable condition, so many dead and dying fish! I can't believe thay can get away with selling fish out of tanks like that! Sorry, I just had to vent. I am about to call their national customer service. Thanks, Lauren


Original text re-instated so others may not make the same mistake - Adam.

At the risk of sounding obvious, are you sure they weren't blind cave tetras (Astyanax jordani)?

Joe Potato

Gosh, I don't know. Lol. They had these deep empty holes where it looked like eyes should be.... but maybe they were. Wow, I don't know. Now you make me want to go back to the store and look again!

First of all, good for you if you DO complain about a store that exhibits deplorable husbandry standards! More power to your elbow!

Second, there are several truly 'blind' fishes in existence. The one you saw was probably the variant of Astyanax mexicanus that was found in the Carlsbad Caverns, and originally named Anoptichthys jordani (what a mouthful THAT taxonomic name is!) until it was realised that the fish was in fact a population of Astyanax mexicanus that had become isolated in the cave system for thousands of generations. These fishes gradually lost the use of their eyes (they do still develop optic nerves as embryos, but the rest of the visual system doesn't grow) over a period of some 1 to 2 million years or so because their home, such as it is, is literally pitch black, absolutely NO light enters their home, and so eyes are useless to them in that setting. To compensate, they have a much more acutely developed lateral line system for navigating via vibrations in the water.

This page covers the details of the fish]http://fish.mongabay.com/species/Astyanax_fasciatus_mexicanus.html[/link], and [link=this page shows a specimen (minus eyes).

There are other blind cave fishes apart from this - the Blind Cave loach from Iran, Iranocpyris typhlops is one such fish (here is an illustration]http://www.briancoad.com/Species%20Accounts/ityphlopsfig.htm[/link]), and there's a new blind cave loach been discovered recently in China, Triplophysa rosa. Plus, there's a blind catfish - [link=this one, the eerily named Satan eurystomus, the Devil's Blind Catfish ...

Loaches seem to be fairly well represented among blind cave fishes by the way - this page lists five species that I haven't covered above!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I've got 3 of them, the ones in the picture Calil linked to!! They are fascinating fish, they have unique ways of navigating in the tank, they seem to be very resiliant and have strong immune systems (the only fish I've ever successfully treated for Septicaemia!)

They also have a rather disturbing taste for scabs!!

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions