More than 10 years ago, in a very serendipitously event, I visited for the first time some caves in the middle of the jungle where the blind Astyanax mexicanus has evolved. This adventure blew my mind and made me realize I wanted to do science. Today, this paper (link) represents the results since my first observations of the parasites of a blind fish. At that moment, it was like a child observing a toy for the first time. I had no idea what could be there (if there was anything at all), before me, these blind fish had never been analyzed for parasites before, and I was a young and inexperienced parasitologist learning on the go. It was a surprise when I found small animals moving on the fish, and as it often happens with small parasites, once you observe one, the others follow. After that, season after season, we hunted for their parasites, accumulating observations from 18 out of the 35 caves registered until this day. Many of these caves are not easily accessible, ranging from those you can enter by walking horizontally to others with pits of almost 250m depth (which we haven't reached yet) that require technical skills and, of course, courage and nerves of steel. In the end, the odyssey is worth it; the paths in the darkness lead you to pools where the bright blind fish and their parasites await.
I can’t wait to explore other new interactions that may be hidden in those underground rivers in complete darkness, which my microscope has not reached yet. I’m excited to investigate deeper into the mechanisms that govern these interactions and explore a myriad of possible questions. How are symbiotic interactions maintained in such an extreme environment? How are they co-evolving? Do these symbioses play a role in the fish's adaptation to the caves?
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