Atractosteus

Atractosteus
	Alligator pike ( A. spatula ) at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
Systematics
Subclass :	Neuflosser (Neopterygii)
Subclass :	Bone organoids (holostei)
	Ginglymodes
Order :	Lepisosteiformes
Family :	Bake fish (Lepisosteidae)
Genre :	Atractosteus
Scientific name
	Atractosteus
	Rafinesque , 1820

Atractosteus is a genus of the bonefish (Lepisosteidae), a group of original bonefish (Teleostei), which is distributed with three species in North and Central America . Atractosteus is a freshwater inhabitant, but the Cuban bonefish ( A. tristocheus ) also penetrates the brackish water zone of the rivers.

features

From Lepisosteus , the other genus of the bake with four species, Atractosteus differs by two rows of enlarged teeth on each side of the jaw and its large, branched gill traps with 59 to 81 rays on the first gill arch. The physique is also stronger and the muzzle shorter and wider.

Systematics and evolution

Fossil of A. kinkelini ( Syn. : A. strausi ) from the mitteleozänen Lake deposits of Messel , about 48 to 46 million years old

There are three recent species of the genus known:

Alligator pike ( A. spatula ) in North America with a length of up to three meters
Cuban bonefoot ( A. tristocheus ) on Cuba with a length of up to two meters
Tropical fish ( A. tropicus ) in Central America with a length of up to 125 centimeters

The genus is estimated to have originated in the late Lower Jurassic about 180 million years ago. Fossil finds are known from North America, Europe, Asia and Africa, the oldest evidence in the fossil record comes from the early Cretaceous West Africa about 135 million years ago.

Web links

Commons : Atractosteus - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae) . In: KE Carpenter (Ed.): FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication . tape 5 . FAO, Rome 2002, p. 676 ( full text [PDF]).
↑ Description of the genera at the US Environmental Protection Agency (English)
^ William John Matthews: Patterns in freshwater fish ecology . Springer, 1998, ISBN 978-0-412-02831-1 , pp. 221 .

[Carpenter-1] A ^b The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae) . In: KE Carpenter (Ed.): FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication . tape 5 . FAO, Rome 2002, p. 676 ( full text [PDF]).

[2] Description of the genera at the US Environmental Protection Agency (English)

[3] William John Matthews: Patterns in freshwater fish ecology . Springer, 1998, ISBN 978-0-412-02831-1 , pp. 221 .