Fire spiny eel
| Fire spiny eel | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fire spiny eel ( Mastacembelus erythrotaenia ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Mastacembelus erythrotaenia | ||||||||||||
| Bleeker , 1850 |
The fire or red stripe spiny eel ( Mastacembelus erythrotaenia ) is a 1 m long freshwater fish that occurs from Thailand and Cambodia to Indonesia . It is the largest species of the spiny eel (Mastacembelidae).
features
The fire spiny eel has the typical, eel-shaped but laterally flattened body of most spiny eels. The long dorsal fin is supported by 34 to 39 hard rays and 79 to 90 soft rays, the anal fin by three hard rays and 79 to 90 soft rays. Both fins form a uniform fin edge with the caudal fin. Fire spiny eels are very dark, blackish to dark brown in color. Four red longitudinal lines run over the head and front body. The rest of the body is patterned by round or elongated red spots. The fins are also lined with dark and red. The soft-rayed parts of the unpaired fins (dorsal and anal fin) are bordered by a white border. Both sexes are colored the same.
Way of life
The fire spiny eel lives in slowly flowing lowland rivers and their floodplains. It feeds on insect larvae, worms and plant matter. The fish are caught for human consumption and the aquarium trade and are now rare.
literature
- Günther Sterba : The world's freshwater fish. 2nd Edition. Urania, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-332-00109-4 .
Web links
- Fire spiny eel on Fishbase.org (English)
- Mastacembelus erythrotaenia inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: Vidthayanon, C., 2011. Retrieved January 26, 2014.