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>It was more than that. The moment the researchers grabbed a few juvenile fish out of a net, the skin started to disintegrate, killing them. It took four years just to perfect delicate fast-releasing hooks for capturing juveniles and moving them into pens.

Can anyone explain why this is? Seems odd that a wild animal's skin would be so easily ruptured when it has to survive the rigors of the ocean.

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I don't know for sure, but I had a few guesses.

1. Juvenile, so immature? Softer/more vulnerable scales?

2. The scales may be optimized for speeding along quickly through water and the net basically tore the scales apart?

3. The scales may not be durable since the tuna's primary mode of defense is probably speeding away.

4. The end of the article does say that "only one in tens of millions becomes an adult," so it could just be a weakness that was never changed in the course of evolution because it's not detrimental or common enough to force selection.

Most (if not all) fish have a mucous-like slime that protects their skin from things like disease, flesh wounds, and some parasites. Primary concerns with typical angling will be in the handling of the fish, and exposure to outside elements that could dry out this layer of slime.

FWIW, Disintegrate may not be the best word here but I'm not a scientist... just a fly-fisherman.

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