Mormyrops zanclirostris
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Mormyrops zanclirostris |
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| Mormyrops zanclirostris | ||||||||||||
| ( Günther , 1867) |
Mormyrops zanclirostris is an African freshwater fish from the Nile pike family(Mormyridae). It occurs in the Congo Basin as well as in the Kouilou , the Ogowe and the Ivindo in Gabon .
features
Mormyrops zanclirostris becomes a maximum of 27 cm long and has an elongated body the color of dark chocolate . The body is five to eight times as long as it is high. The elongated snout with a very small, terminal mouth with a single row of more than twelve teeth in the upper and lower jaw is striking. The muzzle length makes up about 12.9% of the standard length and 40 to 42% of the head length. The eye diameter is small and amounts to 9 to 13% of the length of the snout, the nostrils are close together at the tip of the snout.
The dorsal and anal fins are located far back. The latter is long and supported by a simple ray and 33 to 39 branched rays. The shorter dorsal fin lies above the 12th to 14th anal fin ray, reaches about 59% of the anal fin length and has a single fin ray and 18 to 20 branched fin rays. The tail fin stalk is twice as long as it is high and reaches 30% of the length of the head. 70 to 74 scales are counted along the sidelines .
Like all Nilhechte, Mormyrops zanclirostris is capable of electrical communication and electrical orientation. Its electrical signal is wave-shaped and breaks down into three phases. The first, in which the head forms the positive pole, is of low amplitude , followed by a larger one with the head as the negative pole and another larger one, in which the head in turn forms the positive pole. The total duration of the electrical signal is one millisecond.
Systematics
Mormyrops zanclirostris was temporarily assigned to its own genus, Oxymormyrus , with its sister species Mormyrops boulengeri . The long, tubular-mouthed snout was typical of the species. Since Oxymormyrus is phylogenetically within Mormyrops , both species are placed in this genus in more recent publications and Oxymormyrus is only a subgenus of Mormyrops .
literature
- Melanie Stiassny, Guy Teugels & Carl D. Hopkins: The Fresh and Brackish Water Fishes of Lower Guinea, West-Central Africa, Volume 1. ISBN 9789074752206
- ACLG Günther: New fishes from the Gaboon and Gold Coast. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Series 3), Volume 20, Issue 116, Pages 110–117, 08/1867 Link to the first description (PDF; 4.2 MB)
Web link
- Mormyrops zanclirostris inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Listed by: Moelants, T, 2009. Retrieved January 12, 2014.