{"id":567162,"date":"2025-11-14T17:18:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=567162"},"modified":"2025-11-14T17:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:18:42","slug":"prolonged-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/prolonged-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Prolonged youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"889\" class=\"size-full wp-image-567167 vertical\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-fotolab-priocharax-rex-2025-04-800.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-fotolab-priocharax-rex-2025-04-800.jpg 800w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-fotolab-priocharax-rex-2025-04-800-250x278.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-fotolab-priocharax-rex-2025-04-800-700x778.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-fotolab-priocharax-rex-2025-04-800-120x133.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/>They are transparent, swim at the bottom of rivers, and measure no more than three centimeters long. Despite its apparent insignificance, the fish genus <em>Priocharax<\/em> is an important piece of the ecological puzzle, feeding on insect larvae and serving as food for the young of other types of fish, in addition to carrying an evolutionary enigma: they remain in juvenile form.<\/p>\n<p>In the photograph above, the dissected and stained pectoral fin bones of <em>P. rex <\/em>appear pink, with the cartilage in blue\u2014and therein lies the surprise. In the adult fish of other genera, the fins ossify into spiny rays. <em>P. rex<\/em> It is the largest species of the 10 described in the genus\u2014seven of them by biologist George Mattox.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image submitted by George Mattox of the Biology Department at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos, Sorocaba campus<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The evolutionary enigma of the tiny transparent fish that never progresses past its juvenile form","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[206,224],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-567162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photolab","tag-biodiversity","tag-ecology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567171,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567162\/revisions\/567171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567162"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=567162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}