Some Fish Swim. Weirder Fish Hop. This Fish ​Waddles

(techno pop music)

[Narrator] Just look at this here fish.

There is nothing else like it.

It's blind.

It has huge fins that look like wings

and it walks.

But not the way other walking fish move.

Those guys walk by hopping forward,

using their pectoral fins like crutches.

This cave fish actually takes steps.

It moves one fin in front of the other

like a really awkward lizard.

That slow march could teach us a lot about

how our own fishy ancestors learned how to walk.

This waterfall climbing cave fish is incredibly rare though.

(water splashing)

It lives in just eight caves in the world,

and the Thai government fiercely protects the species.

So American scientists studying the thing had to rely

on these videos shot by a Thai scientist

showing the weird walking.

They also developed a 3D model of the fish

using a CT scan of a specimen kept at a Thai museum.

Thanks to high resolution camcorders, CT scanners

and Skypeing scientists, the world has one more

super weird fish to ooh and aah over.

(techno pop music)