Moon eye
| Moon eye | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Moon eye ( Hiodon tergisus ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hiodon tergisus | ||||||||||||
| Lesueur , 1818 |
The moon-eye ( Hiodon tergisus ) is a freshwater fish from the group of osteoglossomorpha that occurs in central and eastern North America . Its distribution area extends from Alberta , Saskatchewan , southern Manitoba and Québec to the Gulf of Mexico ( Mobile Bay in Alabama to Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana) and thus includes the catchment area of Hudson Bay , the Great Lakes with the exception of Lake Superior and the Mississippi .
features
The moon's eye becomes a maximum of 47 cm long, but usually stays just under 30 cm in length. The maximum published weight is 907 g. The fish look like high-backed herrings. Your dorsal fin begins in front of the longer anal fin, the gap in the mouth extends to behind the center of the eye. From its sister species , the golden eye ( Hiodon alosoides ), the moon eye differs in its low number of vertebrae (55–58 versus 58–63), the smaller number of anal fin rays (26–30 vs. 31–33) and the smaller number of these fin rays supporting fin bearer (27–31 vs. 31–36). Compared to the golden eye, their body is higher, the base of the dorsal fin is longer and that of the anal fin is shorter. The fleshy keel, which in the gold eye extends from a point in front of the pelvic fins to the anal fin, runs in the moon eye from the pelvic fins to the anal fin.
Way of life
The moon eye lives mainly in oxbow lakes and deep areas of medium and large rivers and in lakes. It prefers clear water and feeds on invertebrates and small fish, as well as insects that have fallen on the surface of the water. It can live to be 10 to 11 years old and becomes sexually mature at 3 to 5 years of age.
literature
- Roger Tory Peterson, Lawrence M. Page, Mariner Books: A Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes: North America North of Mexico. Mariner Books, 1998, ISBN 0-3959-1091-9
Web links
- Moon eye on Fishbase.org (English)
- Li, Guo-Qing, and Mark VH Wilson. 1998. Hiodon tergisus Mooneye in The Tree of Life Web Project .
- Hiodon tergisus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: NatureServe, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2014.