[3] In February 2009, it was successfully bred in captivity at University of Florida using a new variation of the ovarian lavage technique.

However, the species' aggressive nature limits its ability to be housed with other fish.

[2] Their diet consists primarily of snails, but includes mollusks, crustaceans, and some plant material.

D. nigroviridis has the smallest known vertebrate genome, roughly 340 million base pairs,[7] and has thus been selected as a model organism for genetics.

D. nigroviridis also has some value as a lab animal, in particular in genetics, because it has the same number of genes as human beings, but in a genome about one-tenth the size.