As commercial fishermen sold their catch at the busy United Fishing Agency (UFA) auction house in Honolulu, Hawaii, fish buyer Garrett Kitazaki noticed something curious about the opah changing hands: some had much bigger eyes, and their spots and color looked different.
Karen Underkoffler and Megan Luers, then contractors for NOAA Fisheries, followed up by measuring and taking tissue samples from the circular fish that are becoming an increasingly popular dish in restaurants. They sent the samples to John Hyde of NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) in La Jolla, Calif., who took the next step of examining their DNA. ..