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These popular aquarium fish have special cultural significance in areas influenced by Chinese culture. The name dragon fish stems from their resemblance to the Chinese dragon. This popularity has had both positive and negative effects on their status as endangered species.
. The fish defend themselves by inflating their bodies to several times normal size and by poisoning their predators. These defenses allow the fish to actively explore their environment without much fear of being attacked.
The fish is highly toxic, but despite this — or perhaps because of it — it is considered a delicacy in Japan. Every year a number of people die because they underestimate the amount of poison in the consumed fish parts. The fish is featured prominently in Japanese art and culture.
ray-finned fishes. The paddlefish can be distinguished by its large mouth and its elongated snout called a rostrum (bill). These spatula-like snouts comprise half the length of their entire body. There are only two extant species of these fish: the Chinese and the American paddlefish
. These fish are not closely related to sharks, but they do have some body parts that resemble those of sharks such as their skeletons, primarily composed of cartilage, and deeply forked heterocercal tail fins. Paddlefish are one of the oldest fish known to man. Fossil records show that they first appeared 300 to 400 million years ago (50 million years before dinosaurs). In some areas, paddlefish are referred to as "Spoonbill", "Spoonies" or "Spoonbill Catfish".
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout. Salmon live in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Great Lakes and other land locked lakes.
Typically, salmon are
semelparity
. Other species average about two or, perhaps, three spawning events per individual.
jawless fish with a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth, with which most species bore into the flesh of other fish to suck their blood. In zoology, lampreys are often not considered to be true fish
because of their vastly different morphology and physiology.
Lampreys begin life as burrowing freshwater
parasitic
life, attaching to a fish by their mouths, secreting an anticoagulant to the host, and feeding on the blood and tissues of the host. In most species this phase lasts about 18 months. Whether lampreys are predators or parasites is a blurred question.
but has been introduced elsewhere in North America as well as throughout much of Europe.
These fish reach a maximum overall length of about 40 cm (16 in). The fish present an oval silhouette and are very narrow laterally; it is their body shape, resembling the seed of a pumpkin, which got them their common name. Pumpkinseeds prefer shallow water with some weed cover. They are often found in ponds and small lakes, preferring water temperatures of 4–22 °C (39–72 °F). They are active during the day and rest near the bottoms during the night. These fish reproduce rapidly and are low on the food chain. The pumpkinseed, like other sunfishes, is very popular among anglers, especially the young.
temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head without a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long, when their dorsal and anal fins
are extended.
Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of
pufferfish
, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish.
Tiktaalik is a genus of extinctsarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes from the late Devonian period, with many features akin to those of tetrapods (four-legged animals). It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian fish developing adaptations to oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats at that time, which led to the evolution of amphibians. Well preserved fossils were found in 2004 on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada.
Tiktaalik lived approximately 375 million years ago. Paleontologists suggest that it was an intermediate form between fish such as
in Asia and Europe. They receive their common name from the ability to detect changes in barometric pressure and react with frantic swimming or standing on end. This is because before a storm the barometric pressure changes, and this is known to make these fish more active.
The
dojo loach
, or Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, an Asian weather loach species, is a common aquarium and food fish. Like many other loaches, they are slender and eel-like. They can vary in color from yellow to olive green, to a common light brown or gray with lighter undersides. The mouth of the loach is surrounded by three sets of barbels. It uses them to sift through silt or pebbles to find food. It also uses them to dig under gravel and sand to conceal itself out of nervousness or defense unlike the other loaches who use the spines beneath the eyes.
Hippocampus erectus are larger seahorses found anywhere from Nova Scotia down to around Uruguay. Three different species of seahorse live in the Mediterranean Sea: Hippocampus hippocampus (long snout), Hippocampus brevirostris (short snout) and Hippocampus fuscus (immigrated from the Red Sea
). These fish form territories, with males staying in about one square meter of their habitat while females range about one hundred times that area. They bob around in sea grass meadows, mangrove stands, and coral reefs where they are camouflaged by murky brown and grey patterns that blend into the sea grass backgrounds. During social moments or in unusual surroundings, seahorses turn bright colors.
