Esox aquitanicus
| Esox aquitanicus | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Esox aquitanicus | ||||||||||||
| Denys , Dettai , Persat , Hautecœur & Keith , 2014 |
Esox aquitanicus is a species of pike ( Esox )newly described in 2014. It includes the pike populations of south-western France ( Aquitaine ), which were separated from the northern European pike ( Esox lucius ) and were given their own species status.
distribution
Esox aquitanicus occurs in southwestern France in the Charente , Dordogne , Eyre and Adour river basins .
features
Esox aquitanicus becomes over a meter long, is elongated and has a flattened, duck-like snout. A pike caught in the Cazeau lake in the center of the range was 1.37 meters long. The big mouth is covered with many pointed teeth. The dorsal and anal fins are located far back near the caudal fin, while the pectoral and ventral fin are low on the body. In addition to metric characteristics, the proportions between different body dimensions, Esox aquitanicus mainly differs in color and the smaller number of scales along the lateral line from Esox lucius .
Esox aquitanicus is gray to gray-green in color and shows 16 to 30 diagonal transverse bands on its body sides that are 1 to 1.5 scales wide. This pattern is particularly clear in juvenile fish and becomes more and more irregular with age. The fins are yellowish to orange. The paired fins show only a few dark patterns, the unpaired ones are clearly darkly patterned. Like the juvenile fish of Esox lucius and Esox cisalpinus , the juvenile fish of Esox aquitanicus have a noticeable horizontal brown stripe below the eyes.
- Scale formula : SL 101–121, (125–148 in E. lucius )
- Vertebra: 53-57.
Way of life
With the exception of the earlier spawning season (February for Esox aquitanicus , March to April for Esox lucius ), the way of life of Esox aquitanicus probably hardly differs from that of Esox lucius .
literature
- Gaël Pierre Julien Denys, Agnès Dettai, Henri Persat, Mélyne Hautecœur, Philippe Keith: Morphological and molecular evidence of three species of pikes Esox spp. (Actinopterygii, Esocidae) in France, including the description of a new species. Comptes Rendus Biologies, August 05, 2014; doi: 10.1016 / j.crvi.2014.07.002
Web links
- Esox aquitanicus on Fishbase.org (English)