Spotted archerfish
| Spotted archerfish | ||||||||||||
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Spotted archerfish ( Toxotes chatareus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Toxotes chatareus | ||||||||||||
| ( Hamilton , 1822) |
The spotted archerfish ( Toxotes chatareus ) is a brackish water fish that occurs in South Asia and Oceania from Sri Lanka and India to New Guinea and Northern Australia.
features
It reaches a maximum length of 40 cm, but usually stays at 25 cm, and is very similar to the common archer fish ( T. jaculatrix ). In contrast to this, it has five dorsal fin spines (four in T. jaculatrix ) and a number of dark spots of different sizes on the upper half of the body sides. Young fish of both species look the same and have a cross-tie pattern. With age, the transverse bands in T. chatareus are reduced to spots and smaller spots appear between them.
- Fin formula : dorsal V – VI / 12–13, anal III / 15–17, ventral I / 5.
- Scale formula : mLR 33–34, QR 5 / 11–13.
ecology
The spotted archerfish mainly lives in brackish mangroves and estuaries, but also lives in freshwater zones. It usually hangs under overhanging bank vegetation and feeds on small fish, crustaceans and insects. The food is always taken from or near the surface of the water. He can spit insects up to a distance of 1.5 m by a jet of water from their seat. The fish are very fertile, a female lays between 20,000 and 150,000 eggs with a diameter of 0.4 mm. They reproduce in both brackish and fresh water during the rainy season.
swell
- Günther Sterba : The world's freshwater fish. 2nd Edition. Urania, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-332-00109-4 .
Web links
- Spotted archerfish on Fishbase.org (English)