Antfish
| Antfish | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Atelura formicaria | ||||||||||||
| Heyden , 1855 |
The antfish , scientific name Atelura formicaria , is a species of the insect order of the fish (zygentoma). The species is myrmekophil , it lives in the nests of ants and is dependent on them for their nutrition. The antfish is the only species that lives outdoors in Central Europe, the otherwise obligatory synathropic fish that only live in heated houses.
description
The antfish reaches a body length of about 4 to 6 millimeters and is therefore only about half as long as the synanthropic species common in Central Europe. It is unmistakable among the Central European species: it is pale in color, the body is densely covered by pale yellowish, somewhat metallic (and therefore golden-looking) scales. The eyes are completely absent. The body appendages, both the antennae and the three tail appendages ( cerci and terminal filum ), are unusually short. His body is also short, the abdomen is the width of the trunk in front and strongly narrowed to the rear, so that it is almost triangular when viewed from above.
The species has weak bristles, on the abdomen at the rear corners of each segment there is a strong bristle, the bristle combs typical of many small fish are not formed. On the underside of the abdomen, there are styli, which are paired handle-shaped appendages that go back to extremities, on segments two to nine.
distribution
The antfish lives in most of Europe, from France in the west to the Crimean peninsula in the east. It rarely occurs to the northwest as far as Belgium, in the Netherlands to the west as far as Brittany , but is absent in Great Britain . The southernmost evidence so far comes from the island of Sicily. In southern Central Europe, the species is generally considered not rare, but is not often found because of its hidden way of life. Finds in the North German Plain and the regions north of it have not been proven.
Ecology and way of life
Antfish are found almost exclusively inside ant nests, only a few individual individuals also apart from them. They are mostly considered to be commensals who feed on waste materials in the nest. Occasionally they push each other in between feeding the ant workers ( trophallaxis ) and steal food from them, so they are at least partially kleptoparasites . The fish run quickly between the ants and try to avoid direct contact. If they are recognized by ants, they behave aggressively, they can definitely kill antfish if they are cornered and have no means of escape. The animals usually trust their agility and the rounded body shape, which offers few points of attack. Usually only a few small fish are found per nest, usually only one to three, rarely, especially with small ant species such as the genus Pheidole , even more. Antfish prefer small ant species as hosts, but are not specific; they also occur occasionally in larger ant species such as the genus Camponotus .
Taxonomy
The antfish is a type of the genus Atelura . This includes two other species in Europe, of which Atelura montana only lives on the southern Balkan Peninsula and Atelura valenciana in the area around Valencia (Spain). Another species was described from Abkhazia in 2016 . The genus is assigned to the subfamily Atelurinae of the Nicoletiidae. According to a suggestion by the Portuguese entomologist Luis Fernando Mendes, some authors consider this to be an independent family Ateluridae. According to all results, both groups are certainly closely related, but a sister group relationship is doubted by many researchers. Another species of Atelurinae lives in southern Europe, Proatelurina pseudolepisma .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alferd Palissa: Zygentoma, little fish . In: Bernhard Klausnitzer (Hrsg.): Stresemann - excursion fauna of Germany . 11th, revised and expanded edition. tape 2 : invertebrates: insects . Spectrum Akademischer Verlag (Springer), Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8274-2452-5 , p. 55 , urn : nbn: de: 1111-2011090202 .
- ↑ a b c Rafael Molero-Baltanás, Pietro Paolo Fanciulli, Francesco Frati, Antonio Carapelli, Miguel Gaju-Ricart: New data on the Zygentoma (Insecta, Apterygota) from Italy . In: Pedobiologia . tape 44 , no. 3–4 , 2000, pp. 320-332 , doi : 10.1078 / S0031-4056 (04) 70052-9 .
- ↑ a b c Rafael Molero-Baltanás, Miguel Gaju-Ricart, Carmen Bach de Roca, LF Mendes: Description of Atelura valenciana n. Sp. (Insecta, Zygentoma) and distribution and myrmecophilic relationships of Proatelurina pseudolepisma in the Iberian peninsula . In: Miscellania Zoologica . tape 21 , no. 1 , 1998, p. 101-117 .
- ^ Thomas Parmentier, Marc van Kerckvoorde, Wouter Dekoninck: First record of the myrmecophilous silverfish Atelura formicaria Heyden, 1855 in Belgium (Zygentoma: Nicoletiidae) . In: Bulletin de la Société royale belge d'Entomologie / Bulletin van de Koninklijke Belgische Vereniging voor Entomologie . tape 149 , 2013, p. 27-28 .
- ↑ Dwergmierengast (Atelura formicaria) www.SoortenBank.nl
- ^ A b Frank Wieland, Julia Goldberg: Evidence of the antfish Atelura formicaria Heyden, 1855 (Zygentoma: Ateluridae) in the outdoor area of the Palatinate Museum for Natural History . In: Pollichia Kurier . tape 31 , no. 4 , 2015, p. 19-21 .
- ^ Karl Escherich: The system of the Lepismatiden . In: Carl Chun (Hrsg.): Zoologica, original treatises from the entire field of zoology . tape 43 . E. Nägele, Stuttgart 1905, p. 29-30 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
- ↑ Rafael Molero-Baltanás, Carmen Bach de Roca, Alberto Tinaut, José Diz Pérez, Miguel Gaju-Ricart: Symbiotic relationships between silverfish (Zygentoma: Lepismatidae, Nicoletiidae) and ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Western Palaearctic. A quantitative analysis of data from Spain . In: Myrmecological News . tape 24 , 2017, p. 107-122 ( myrmecologicalnews.org [PDF]).
- ^ VG Kaplin: New species of the bristletail families Ateluridae and Lepismatidae (Zygentoma) from Abkhazia and Adygea . In: Entomological Review . tape 96 , no. 7 , 2016, p. 885-898 , doi : 10.1134 / S0013873816070101 .