Why This Fish Actually Needs a Hole in the Head

Why This Fish Actually Needs a Hole in the Head

Ten years ago, Kory Evans, an evolutionary biologist, was staring at an unusual fish in a lab. The fish, a rockhead poacher, was tiny and chunky, he said, and looked “so different from all the other guys around it.” But the feature that made it stand out the most was the “big old hole” in the middle of its head, he said. For over a century, the poacher’s head cavity had puzzled scientists. Daniel Geldof, an undergraduate at the University of Was…