Garfish
Garfish | ||||||||||||
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Crocodile garfish ( Tylosurus crocodilus ) |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Belonidae | ||||||||||||
Bonaparte , 1832 |
The family of Hornhechte (Belonidae of βέλος = "bullet, arrow") includes 40 species in 12 genera .
Appearance
Garfish are very slender surface fish. They have a beak-like, elongated mouth with numerous, needle-like teeth. In adult animals, the upper and lower jaws are the same length. The young animals first have a normal mouth, then the lower jaw grows first, so that they look like the related half-beak (Hemiramphidae). The upper jaw follows later.
The fins do not have hard rays. The dorsal and anal fins are located far back on the body, the pelvic fins are roughly in the middle of the body. The eyes of the garfish have special protection against the bright light coming from above, to which they are particularly exposed as surface fish. The iris has a lobe in its upper part that reduces the penetration of direct sunlight. The shape and size of the iris lobe are different for each species.
Small freshwater species are only 6 to 7 inches long, while large marine species can grow up to 2 meters in length.
distribution
The animals have a worldwide distribution in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas, in brackish and fresh waters. The common garfish ( Belone belone ) lives in the Eastern Atlantic, from Iceland to the Canary Islands, in the Mediterranean , in the Black Sea and in the North and Baltic Seas .
Others
The native common garfish ( belone belone ) grows to a meter long. It is a very popular food fish, but it is not fished commercially. On the coasts of the southern and western Baltic Sea, it is fished especially in early summer (around the beginning of May for a maximum of 3 weeks), as it then comes near the beach to spawn. The Greifswalder Bodden is a popular spawning area . Its green bones are striking. This color is produced by the breakdown of the red blood pigment hemoglobin to biliverdin .
Garfish feed on small open water fish and free-swimming crustaceans, which they hunt quickly by hitting the prey (like the bonefish ) mostly sideways. When hunting, on the run or to get rid of parasites , garfish can jump far out of the water.
Garfish attach their spawn with adhesive threads to solid substrates floating in the water, such as seaweed, flotsam or even boats.
Systematics
Family Belonidae
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Ablennes Jordan and Fordice, 1887
- Ablennes hians (Valenciennes in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1846)
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Belone Cuvier, 1816
- Common garfish ( Belone belone (Linnaeus, 1760) )
- Belone euxini Günther, 1866
- Belone svetovidovi Collette & Parin, 1970
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Belonion Collette, 1966
- Belonion apodion Collette, 1966
- Belonion dibranchodon Collette, 1966
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Cololabis Gill, 1896
- Cololabis adocetus Böhlke, 1951
- Pacific jackfish ( Cololabis saira (Brevoort, 1856) )
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Petalichthys Regan, 1904
- Petalichthys capensis Regan, 1904
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Platybelone Fowler, 1919
- Platybelone argalus (Lesueur, 1821)
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Potamorrhaphis Günther, 1866
- Potamorrhaphis eigenmanni Miranda Ribeiro, 1915
- Potamorrhaphis guianensis (Jardine in Schomburgk, 1843)
- Potamorrhaphis labiatus Sant'Anna et al., 2012
- Potamorrhaphis petersi Collette, 1974
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Pseudotylosurus Fernández-Yépez, 1948
- Pseudotylosurus angusticeps (Günther, 1866)
- Pseudotylosurus microps (Günther, 1866)
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Scomberesox Lacépède, 1803
- Jackfish ( Scomberesox saurus (Walbaum, 1792) )
- Dwarf mackerel ( Scomberesox simulans (Hubbs & Wisner, 1980) )
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Strongylura van Hasselt, 1824
- Strongylura anastomella (Valenciennes in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1846)
- Strongylura exilis (Girard, 1854)
- Strongylura fluviatilis (Regan, 1903)
- Strongylura hubbsi Collette, 1974
- Strongylura incisa (Valenciennes in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1846)
- Strongylura krefftii (Günther, 1866)
- Strongylura leiura (Bleeker, 1850)
- Strongylura marina (Walbaum, 1792)
- Strongylura notata (Poey, 1860)
- Strongylura scapularis (Jordan and Gilbert, 1882)
- Strongylura senegalensis (Valenciennes in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1846)
- Strongylura strongylura (van Hasselt, 1823)
- Strongylura timucu ( whale tree , 1792)
- Strongylura urvillii (Valenciennes in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1846)
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Tylosurus Cocco, 1833
- Tylosurus acus (Lacepède, 1803)
- Tylosurus choram (Rüppell, 1837)
- Tylosurus crocodilus (Péron & Lesueur in Lesueur, 1821)
- Tylosurus gavialoides (Castelnau, 1873)
- Tylosurus pacificus (Steindachner, 1876)
- Tylosurus punctulatus (Günther, 1872)
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Xenentodon Regan, 1911
- Xenentodon cancila (Hamilton, 1822)
- Xenentodon canciloides (Bleeker, 1853)
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World , John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
Web links
- Garfish on Fishbase.org (English)