A new species of cavefish discovered in Thailand was captured walking and climbing up waterfalls that can be compared to the manner how salamanders walk, as researchers say that this behavior is linked to a major evolutionary achievement.

In a new study carried out by scientists from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Cryptotora thamicola can be described as a blind, walking type of cavefish but apparently, this "fish" behaves more like an amphibian.

According to co-author of the study, Brooke E. Flammang who is a biological sciences professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology Institute, this new species of fish also possesses unique anatomical features that are only observed in tetrapods before. Tetrapods are four limbed vertebrates that also include amphibians and reptiles. 

Flammang describes that these fish can stick to rocks and climb waterfalls even in complete darkness and even submerged completely underwater.

There are other known fish species that can move on land however in this new study, the NJIT researchers reveal that there is no other living fish species that also possess the same gait or locomotion movement that the cavefish applies which can be likened to tetrapods. Scientists describe this fish as having a "robust pelvic girdle" for climbing.

Flammang says that the pelvis and vertebral column of this cavefish allow the fish to further support its body weight from gravity that also provides large areas for muscle buildup and attachment when it walks.

These new findings can be crucial for scientists to study more about the anatomy of land walking animals, revealing how tetrapods made the long process of transitioning from finned animals to limbed ones, that first began during the Devonian period some 420 million years ago.

Scientists say this is a huge discovery from an evolutionary point of view, making this one of the first fish that is still living today that provides a glimpse of how they acted during the time they first evolved millions of years ago from a marine or fluid environment into a terrestrial environment.

This new study published in the journal, Nature Scientific Reports.