Here is a photo of two, dumb-looking creatures. Can you guess how they will look like after a few months of proper care?
Here's another photo , maybe it will help!
The creatures depicted above are young zebrafish larvae, as seen through a scanning electron microscope. The two holes above the mouth might look like eyes but they are actually the developing olfactory system.
They first photo depicts two 2-days old specimens and was taken by Jurgen Berger and Mahendra Sonawane, both employees at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.
The second photo depicts a 4-days old specimen and was taken by Annie Cavanagh and David McCarthy
Here's how an adult zebrafish actually looks like:
Adult female zebrafish (credit)
And since you are here and all, here is a cool 24 hours skip video showing the development from a fertilized cell to a swimming larvae:
Fun Fact: The zebra fish (Danio rerio) is one of the most commonly used model organisms for scientific research.
Thanks to these guys we have made innumerable advances in fields like developmental biology, oncology, toxicology, genetics, neurobiology, regenerative medicine and so many other.
"As a model biological system, the zebrafish possesses numerous advantages for scientists. Its genome has been fully sequenced, and it has well-understood, easily observable and testable developmental behaviors.
Its embryonic development is very rapid, and its embryos are relatively large, robust, and transparent, and able to develop outside their mother. Furthermore, well-characterized mutant strains are readily available." [1]
References