First skin cancer found in wild fish

THE local fishermen call them the Rambo fish: their scarred, blackened skin makes them look as if they have survived wars. In fact, these are the first wild fish known to have skin cancer.

The diseased coral trout, living on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, were brought to the attention of Michael Sweet at the University of Newcastle in the UK last year. Sweet and his colleagues ruled out fungal disease and say that the black scars, which look like human melanomas, are in fact the symptoms of skin cancer.

The fish live in pristine waters so the most likely cause is the ozone hole, which increases radiation in this region and could explain the high prevalence of disease: 15 per cent of sampled fish had cancerous lesions (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041989).

Other wild animals known to get cancer include the Tasmanian devil and beluga whales.