14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers have discovered that a type of religious ritual taking place in Mexico is having a direct effect on the fish population on which it is applied.
In the southern parts of the country, indigenous populations believe, as they did for centuries, that they must ask the gods for sufficient amounts of rain through ritual sacrifices.
As such, they are in the habit of stunning cave fish, by using a natural toxin derived from plants. They then collect the animals in special baskets, as offerings.
But researchers say that this habit is beginning to have a direct effect on the fish species itself, which is slowly beginning to adapt to the new pressure exerted by humans.
It would now appear that the influence the Zoque people have on the animals is producing individuals that are resistant to the effects of the natural toxin.
While the chemical kills those of the fish that do not have immunity to the toxin, it allows the others to live, which in turn means that future generations of this species have a very high chance of being resistant to the drug.
“We actually got to eat some of these cave fish. They're not very good, by the way,” says Oklahoma State University evolutionary ecologist and study researcher Michael Tobler.
“We learned about the ceremony, and actually attended it in 2007. The families each take a certain amount of the fish home,” he adds.
“The way we had ours prepared was that they were just mixed with scrambled eggs, although I hear other families fry them,” the expert recalls.
“They had a funny salty taste to them, although I'm not sure if that's because of their sulfuric environment, or something the cook messed up,” the scientist goes on to say.
The toxic chemical the Zoque use is derived from the roots of the tropical barbasco plant, which are shaped like a carrot, and extremely dangerous.
The stuff is the converted to a past by adding lime, and the entire mixture is then wrapped in leaves. The leaves are then placed 110 yards (100 meters) into the cave, to numb the fish.
The Zoque believe that they are gifts from the gods of the underworld. Consuming these animals gives them the nutrients they need until the crops are harvested, LiveScience reports.
“What is most exciting to me is that we were really able to find these connections between the natural world and culture, to find that over generations, the local community actually affected the evolutionary trajectory of this population of fish,” Tobler concludes.