Schlammaale
| Schlammaale | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Heterenchelyidae | ||||||||||||
| Regan , 1912 |
The heterenchelyidae (Heterenchelyidae) are a family within the order of the eel-like (Anguilliformes). The animals are found in the Atlantic , Mediterranean and Eastern Pacific , most species in the Eastern Atlantic. Sludge eels are rare and live on the ocean floor at depths of 20 to 1000 meters. They spend most of the time buried in the ground, burying themselves head first. Nothing is known about their way of life.
features
Schlammaale are long and slender and grow to be 30 centimeters to 1.5 meters long. The tail is longer than the head and trunk together. They are cylindrical at the front and laterally flattened at the back. Living sludge eels are reddish due to their well-perfused skin, while dead ones are gray or brown. They have a small head with tiny eyes covered with transparent skin. Pectoral fins , the lateral line organ and scales are missing. The mouth is large and reaches behind the eyes. Both jaws are the same length or the lower jaw protrudes slightly over the upper jaw. The teeth are conical to molar and stand in two to three rows in the jaws and in one or more rows on the vomer . The gill openings are deep. The dorsal fin begins above the gill openings or just behind them. Like the anal fin, it is low and has grown together with this and the caudal fin to form a continuous fin edge.
Systematics
There are two genera with four species each:
- Genus Panturichthys Pellegrin 1913, skin ridge on the head, inner row of teeth on the maxillary completely or almost completely, 109 to 136 vertebrae.
- Panturichthys mauritanicus Pellegrin 1913
- Panturichthys fowleri (Ben-Tuvia 1953)
- Panturichthys isognathus Poll 1953
- Panturichthys longus (Ehrenbaum 1915)
- Genus Pythonichthys Poey 1868, without skin ridge on the head, inner row of teeth of the maxillary incomplete, 141 to 227 vertebrae.
- Pythonichthys macrurus (Regan 1912)
- Pythonichthys microphthalmus (Regan 1912)
- Pythonichthys sanguineus Poey 1868
- Pythonichthys asodes Rosenblatt & Rubinoff 1972
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World , John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
- Kurt Fiedler: Textbook of Special Zoology , Volume II, Part 2: Fish, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena, 1991, ISBN 3-334-00339-6 .
- DG Smith: Heterenchelyidae. Page 694 in FAO Species Identification guide for Fishery Purposes: The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Atlantic, Volume 2 Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae) , ISSN 1020-6868
Web links
- Schlammaale on Fishbase.org (English)