Rainbow snake head
| Rainbow snake head | ||||||||||||
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Rainbow snakehead ( Channa bleheri ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Channa bleheri | ||||||||||||
| Vierke , 1991 |
The rainbow snakehead ( Channa bleheri ) is a fish belonging to the snakehead fish genus and one of the many endemics of this genus. The German first describer and labyrinth fish pioneer Jörg Vierke named this fish after its discoverer Heiko Bleher . Because of its color, Vierke gave the species the German name rainbow snake head.
features
The body of the rainbow snakehead is of a brown-beige basic color and covered with red scales. The throat and fins have strongly iridescent shades of blue. He is no more than 20 cm tall. The type location is Dibrughar , the northeasternmost region of Assam ( India ). Dibrughar is also the type location of Channa aurantimaculata .
Reproduction
Like all other members of its species, the rainbow snakehead is monogamous. Beginning with sexual maturity, pairs are formed that stay together for the whole of their lives for the purpose of shared brood care. In contrast to all other dwarf snake heads, this species is not mouth-brooding, such as. B. Channa gachua or Channa orientalis , but open-faced, like Channa asiatica or Channa melasoma .
The breeding of C. bleheri in the aquarium is accompanied by a number of special features that must be taken into account. Due to the climatic conditions of the type location, C. bleheri is dependent on fluctuating water temperatures. Since it is cold and dry at the foot of the Himalayas in winter, or the water levels reach the annual low at this time, the fish retreats under roots and stones, where they go through a kind of wintering, which is associated with a reduced metabolism. From April it gets hot and with the onset of the monsoons the water levels reach their annual high. Due to this strong climatic change, the spawning season begins. Two German aquarists have successfully applied these climatic conditions to the breeding of C. bleheri , and the three-month cold wintering of the fish at 16-18 ° C water temperature is now used in specialist circles on all smaller snakehead fish species from northeast India.
It is part of the division of labor that the fry are kept exclusively with the male. The female stands aside and defends the outside territory. The swarm of young animals only goes to the mother animal for short periods of time in order to induce them to give up unfertilized eggs, which they consume as their first main food for the first few weeks.
literature
- Vierke, Jörg: A colorful new snakehead fish from Assam. . In: The aquarium . 259, 1991, pp. 21-25.
- Zellmer, H .; Harz W .: The offspring of the rainbow serpent head fish, Channa bleheri . In: Aquaristik Fachmagazin . 31, 2001, pp. 26-27.
- Schnieder, Matthias .: Snakehead fish feeding eggs . In: Aquaristik Fachmagazin . 31, 2001, pp. 38-43.
Web links
- Rainbow snakehead on Fishbase.org (English)
- snakeheads.org - comprehensive website on all aspects of snakehead fish (mostly in English).
- Channa bleheri inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Endangered Species . Posted by: Chaudhry, S., 2010. Retrieved January 25, 2014.