An Italian needlefish has crossed the Kuibyshev Reservoir for the first time and ended up in the Volga.

The fish was caught in the Volga River near the village Barmino, Nizhny Novgorod RegionAs reported by the press secretary of Lobachevsky University Alexey NikonovThis is the first officially recorded case of a marine creature entering fresh water so far upstream.

"The needlefish is one of the strangest creatures in the water. They're related to the seahorse, so even their faces are similar," writes Nikonov. — They are masters of camouflage: they change their color to match the algae and freeze vertically – in this position they are practically invisible to predators.”

The "Italian" has already been transferred to the Zoological Museum of the Nizhny Novgorod State University and preserved.

The species has no protected status and lives in the Mediterranean, Black, Azov and Caspian Seas, as well as in the lower reaches of the Don, Ural and Volga.