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DAM DISASTER

Record fish deformities in Espírito Santo point back to Mariana

The effects of the Mariana dam collapse may still be felt today. Photo: Researchers

Off Conceição da Barra, on the northern coast of Espírito Santo, a fish barely longer than a pencil has set a national record nobody was competing for. 

Ichthyologists from the Museu Nacional at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco pulled the sagittal otoliths out of 38 specimens of Stellifer naso — cangoá to the fishermen who net it — collected at the mouth of the São Mateus River in May 2022. Twenty-three of those otoliths (60.5%) were malformed. The findings were published in the journal Ocean and Coastal Research

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