Icefish Study Adds Another Color to the Story of Blood

These fish are the only ones known to have neither red blood cells nor hemoglobin pigments for transporting oxygen. Even if the alternative blood pigments are generally a poor second to hemoglobin at grabbing oxygen, they do have an advantage in terms of simplicity: They usually don’t need something like a red blood cell to hold them. Last year, the herpetologists Christopher Austin and Zachary Rodriguez of Louisiana State University and Susan Perkins, a parasite researcher in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, reported on their genetic analysis of certain skinks from New Guinea that have so much biliverdin in their blood that its green overpowers the hemoglobin’s red.

Source: www.quantamagazine.org