Angel fish
| Angel fish | ||||||||||||
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Queen angelfish ( Holacanthus ciliaris ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Holacanthus | ||||||||||||
| Lacépède , 1802 |
The angel fish ( Holacanthus ) are a genus of fish from the family of angelfish . They live in the tropical and subtropical west Atlantic from Bermuda to southern Brazil , in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico , in the eastern Atlantic , from Cape Verde to Angola , and in the eastern Pacific .
features
The often colorful animals are 20 to 45 centimeters long. Young animals look completely different and have vertical light blue stripes on a dark blue or brownish background. This enables them to stay in the adult territories without the territory owners reacting aggressively.
Way of life
Angel fish usually live in pairs or individually in large areas of 1000 m² and more. Holacanthus clarionensis lives in large schools. Like their relatives, the real angelfish ( Pomacanthus ), they go through an amazing color change in the course of their life. All angel fish are food specialists who mainly feed on sponges . Young fish, including adults in some species, often act as cleaner fish and free larger fish from annoying parasites .
Systematics
The genus Holacanthus in 1802 by the French naturalist and ichthyologists Bernard Germain de Lacépède described .
There are seven species that are shown in the following cladogram in their relationship to the peacock angelfish ( Pygoplites diacanthus ) as a sister species and an outer group :
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The genus Holacanthus probably originated around 10.2 to 7.6 million years ago after colonization of the tropical Atlantic from the Indian Ocean. Similar scenarios for other fish groups speak for this, e.g. B. with the dwarf angelfish , and the sister group relationship with the peacock angelfish ( Pygoplites diacanthus ). The genus then split into an east and a west Atlantic clade, and after a settlement in the east pacific before the closure of the isthmus of Panama , an east pacific clade (subgenus Plitops ) was added.
Angel fish and people
They are sometimes offered in specialist shops for marine aquarists and are coveted by some aquarists as a prestige object. However, animals with these spatial requirements cannot be offered an adequate habitat. Keeping them in captivity is therefore to be rejected with the exception of very large public show aquariums.
In many tropical countries they are offered as food fish on the fish markets.
literature
- Gerald R. Allen : Butterfly and Angelfish, Volume 2 , 1979, Mergus Verlag, ISBN 3-88244-002-3
- Frank Schneidewind: Angelfish . 1999, Tetra Verlag, ISBN 3-89745-137-9
- Roger C. Steene: Butterfly and Angelfish, Volume 1 , 1977, Mergus Verlag, ISBN 3-88244-001-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lacepède, BGE 1802. Histoire naturelle des poissons. Plassan, Paris 1798-1803.
- ↑ a b Yvette Alva-Campbell, Sergio R. Floeter, D. Ross Robertson, David R. Bellwood, Giacomo Bernardi: Molecular phylogenetics and evolution of Holacanthus angelfishes (Pomacanthidae) ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info : The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 56 (2010) 456-461, Elsevier Inc. doi: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2010.02.014
Web links
- Holacanthus on Fishbase.org (English)