Native to the far reaches of southeast Asia, zebrafish have become the gold standard for aquatic research models. They reach adulthood in about 3 months and develop all of their major organs within the first few days of life. They share almost every organ system with humans and the full genome of 25 chromosomes has been sequenced. While fish are further than mice from humans in terms of evolution, zebrafish hold several key advantages.
They are easy to raise in a lab setting
They produce an exceptional amount of progeny (100-150 embryos per pair)
They develop outside of the mother, useful for tracking development
Housing Tips
A warm water tropical species, standard practice is to keep zebrafish at these parameters