SOUTH AMERICAN LUNGFISH (Lepidosiren paradoxa)
SOUTH AMERICAN LUNGFISH
(Lepidosiren paradoxa)
These fish live in places where there is a long dry season each year. As the water evaporates, each lungfish digs a burrow in the mud and breathes air until the wet weather returns. The fish then breaks out of its burrow and resumes its normal life. There are six species of lungfish. South American and African lungfish have two pairs of lungs, but the Australian lungfish has just one and does not dig burrows.
Bichirs live in large rivers in Africa. They breathe by gulping air. They have long bodies, stubby fins, and a row of finlets along their backs that they can raise or lower like sails. Bichers can also crawl along the riverbed, using their front fins to haul themselves forward. they use this crawling motion to hunt, creeping up on fish and other small water animals.
Scientists originally thought that this fleshy-finned fish had died out 65 million years ago. Then, in 1938, a museum curator spotted one that had been caught off the coast of South Africa, and had it identified by an expert fish biologist. The discovery caused great excitement because coelacanths are the closest living relatives of vertebrates with legs instead of fins. Coelacanths live close to the coast in water up to 2,500 feet deep. They feed on fish and are thought to give birth to live young.
Sturgeon are among the largest and most endangered river fish. The common sturgeon can weigh up to 600 pounds, while the heaviest sturgeon on record-a Russian sturgeon or beluga-weighed nearly one and a half tons. Sturgeon have sharklike bodies with long, flat snouts and five rows of large, bony plates instead of scales. they feed on the bottom of the sea and in rivers, searching for food with the fleshy barbels, or whiskers, beneath their mouths. Female sturgeon lay millions of sticky, black eggs. People collect these eggs and sell them as caviar, one of the world's most expensive foods.
This nocturnal, freshwater fish, has a long lower jaw that looks like an elephant's trunk, which it uses to stir up sand and mud, looking for small animals buried beneath the surface. Elephant-trunk fish often live in murky water, but find their way by creating a weak electrical field around themselves. Underwater objects distort the field, and the fish sense this and steer away.
The pirarucu looks like a gigantic pike and is one of the largest fish to spend all of its life in fresh water. This bonytongued fish lives in South American rivers and swamps. The pirarucu feeds mainly on smaller fish, but it also eats snakes, turtles, frogs, and insects. The slow-flowing water in the pirarucu tropical habitat can get very warm and often contains only a little oxygen. The pirarucu survives in these conditions by gulping air. The air enters the swimbladder, which works like a lung.
Adult herrings live in the open ocean, rising to the surface at night to feed on swarms of plankton. Their teeth are tiny, but their gills work like strainers to trap tiny animals, which they swallow as they swim. Herrings breed by laying eggs, and the female can produce up to 40,000 eggs each year. The eggs sink to the seabed, where many are eaten by haddocks and other predators before they have a chance to hatch. Those that are not eaten produce tiny young fish that swim up toward the surface, attracted by the light. People have fished for herrings since prehistoric times, but in recent years so many have been caught that their numbers have dwindled.
This small fish looks like a miniature herring because it has the same torpedo-shaped, silvery body. Though it is one of the smallest members of the herring family, it is an important source of food for many marine animals. Sprats spawn close to the shore in late winter and spring. their eggs float on the water.
There are more than 100 species of anchovies, and despite being small and slender, they play an important part in ocean life. These silvery fish live in large schools and are eaten by all kinds of animals, from seabirds to seals. Anchovies themselves eat tiny planktonic animals, but instead of snapping them up one by one, they swim with their mouths open and scoop them up as they go. Northern anchovies live in the Pacific Ocean. A similar species lives near the coasts of Europe.
Sardines live close to the shore in spring and summer, but move into deeper water during the rest of the year. When they are inshore, they are often attcked by seabirds. They are also caught by people for food. Sardines are attracted to light at night, and in Southern Europe, they are lured by fleets of small boats with lamps. When the sardines are close enough to a boat, a net is tightened around them and the fish are hauled aboard. Because they swim in large schools, sardines are easy to catch.
This North American fish lives along coasts and in lakes, but it always lays its eggs in fresh water. Like its close relatives, it has a silvery body with a row of sharply pointed scales along its underside. Many alewives travel back into the sea after they spawn, but those that live in landlocked lakes or in rivers wih dams spend their whole lives inland. Freshwater alewives are not as large as thier sea-going relatives, and their numbers vary considerably from year to year.
Like the alewife, the shad has sharp scales along its underside, forming a ridge like a small-toothed saw. It spends most of its life in deep water offshore, but in the spring, it swims up rivers to breed. The adults return to the sea after they have spawned, but the young fish spend up to two years in rivers before venturing out to sea.
Like herring, Atlantic menhadens live in large schools. They are always on the move, looking for plankton-rich waters in which to feed. The sides of their stocky, silvery bodies are marked with distinctive black spots. They lay their eggs in the sea, and their young hatch near the surface. Menhadens are an important food for many other fish, seabirds, and humpback whales.
This large and powerful fish begins its life in a river, where it eats insect larvae and worms. When it has grown to about 6 inches long, it swims downriver to the sea. Adult salmon roam far out into the Atlantic, but after two to four years, they return to fresh water to breed. Using its sense of smell to navigate, each fish finds its way to the river where it developed, fighting its way upstream against the current. Female salmon lay their eggs in riverbed gravel. once breeding is over, the thin and exhausted adults set off back to the sea, leaving their young to mature on their own. Atlantic salmon are valuable food for humans. Some are caught wild, but many are bred in fish farms.
Like the Atlantic salmon, this fish spends most of its adult life in the ocean, returning to rivers to breed. At sea, the males are sleck and silvery, but during the breeding season, they turn bright red and develop a humped back and hooked jaws. Sockeye salmon can travel over 1,000 miles up rivers, leaping up waterfalls and dodging predators. After they have laid their eggs, the adults die.
Smelts are slender-bodied fish with large mouths and long teeth. Like many of their relatives, such as the pike, they have teeth in the roofs of their mouths as well as in their jaws, which makes escape difficult for the fish and crustaceans they eat. Smelts swim up rivers to lay their eggs. The sticky eggs cling to stones and underwater plants.
Originally from North America, this fast-swimming fish is a favorite with anglers and has been introduced into lakes and rivers in many parts of the world. Wild rainbow trout feed on insects and other small animals, sometimes leaping right out of the water to catch those fluttering above. They lay their eggs in gravelly streams. The adults usually return to the ocean after spawning, but fish in large lakes often spend their whole lives in fresh water.
Pike are fierce freshwater predators that live in quiet lakes and rivers. They hunt by lying in wait for their victims-mainly fish- which they grab with a sudden burst of speed. Their jaws are shaped like a long beak and are strong enough to deal with animals up to a third of the pike's own size. In the spring, a pike's diet may also include ducklings and young coots, which it ambushes from below. Pike have cylindrical bodies and large fins positioned close to their tail
The grayling is easy to recognize by the unusually large fin in the middle of its back. During the breeding season, the males fin turns red, and he arches it over the female as she lays her eggs on gravel. Graylings live in rivers and lakes. They feed on insect larvae, other small animals, and on other fish's eggs. A similar species, called the Arctic grayling, is found in Canada and in Alaska.
This member of the salmon family is one of the world's most northerly freshwater fish. It lives in rivers and lakes inland, as well as in the arctic ocean, and survives in places where the water's surface is iced over for many months of the year. Arctic chars look similar to trout, but their color varies, depending on where they live. Males usually develp orange-red undersides during the breeding season, and in some lakes they remain this color all year round.
**All Facts and Information contained in this website can be found in the following reference materials: The Kingfisher Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia and The Complete Book of Animals from The American Education Publishers
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