Access

News and Views

Nature 457, 973 (19 February 2009) | doi:10.1038/457973a; Published online 18 February 2009

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

Taxonomy: Three into one will go

Rory Howlett1

Top

Striking instances of larval metamorphosis, and of adult sexual dimorphism, are not uncommon in the animal world. But especially dramatic examples of these phenomena have emerged from the deep sea.

One corner of the world of ichthyology has just become a little tidier. Writing in Biology Letters, Johnson et al.1 report their investigations of representatives of three families of marine fish — which, they find, are in fact the larvae, males and females of a single family.

  1. Rory Howlett is at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
    Email: r.howlett@noc.soton.ac.uk