Meet the fish that tastes with its feet

Fish evolution is so strange that it's given us species that can count, change color by "seeing" with its skin and even fish that can "sing." But sea robins in the family Triglidae are some of the most bizarre in the ocean, as illuminated by two new studies giving surprising insight into their biology.

With a catfish-shaped body and face, sea robins come in a wide range of colors: Red-brown and orange to subtler hues of silver and gray. Yet sea robins are most notable for their distinctively large, fan-shaped dorsal fins and for their six leg-like appendages.

You read that correctly: A sea robin is a fish that effectively has legs. And thanks to two recent studies in the journal Current Biology — one about its sensory organs in its feet, the other about its genetic evolution — we now understand that these "legs" (really extensions of the pectoral fins) do more than just walk. They are full-fledged multi sensory organs.