Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various North American freshwater fishes of the family Amblyopsidae, found in subterranean waters and having rudimentary nonfunctioning eyes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of various blind fish, of the family Amblyopsidae, that inhabit subterranean waters

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Alabama cavefish, which is listed as a critically endangered species by the U. S, Fish and Wildlife Service, is one of the rarest fish in the world.

    news | FT | http://www.timesdaily.com 2009

  • Case in point, blind cavefish, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, etc. ec.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • “Disuse” is the magic word there: if a cavefish lived in the dark and never used its eyes, the idea was that its progeny would then have smaller eyes.

    Darwin and the vermiform appendix - The Panda's Thumb 2009

  • Northern cavefish and other troglodytic species are found in Mammoth Cave.

    Ecoregions of Kentucky (EPA) 2008

  • The northern cavefish is pictured here and is found only in Ecoregion 71a.

    Ecoregions of Kentucky (EPA) 2008

  • In Illinois, the scarlet snake is known to occur only in Ecoregion 72g, and the spring cavefish is limited to a few areas in southern Illinois including Ecoregion 72g.

    Ecoregions of Illinois (EPA) 2008

  • The threatened Ozark cavefish, Amblyopsis rosae, is closely linked to the endangered gray bat.

    Ecoregions of Iowa and Missouri (EPA) 2008

  • In the past, Namor has demonstrated additional powers similar to the attributes of various forms of sea life, including the electricity-generating capabilities of an electric eel and the radar sense of cavefish; however, he has demonstrated such abilities only sporadically, suggesting that they depend upon some factor of his Atlantean mutant nature that is not yet understood.

    Marvel Thursday Thirteen - SciFiChick.com 2006

  • The largest Ozark cavefish populations occur in caves used by the gray bat, where the bat guano forms the caves 'primary energy source.

    Ecoregions of Iowa and Missouri (EPA) 2008

  • These endemics include three cave-dwelling species (each the only representative of an endemic genus) found only in Somalia, two of which – the Somalian blind barb (Barbopsis devecchii, VU) and Somalian cavefish (Phreatichthys andruzzii, VU) – are blind.

    Biological diversity in the Horn of Africa 2008

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