Knifefish-like
Knifefish-like | ||||||||||||
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Thousand dollar fish ( Chitala ornata ) |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Notopteroidei | ||||||||||||
Greenwood , 1973 |
The knifefish-like (Notopteroidei) are a subordination of the bone-like fish (Osteoglossiformes). The suborder includes about 225 species of freshwater fish . The vast majority of the species live in tropical Africa, seven in South Asia.
features
The knifefish-like have a connection between the swim bladder and the inner ear, which is formed by a bulge at the front end of the swim bladder and which extends to the organ of equilibrium (sacculus). This leads to exceptionally good hearing. Other similarities exist in the structure of the gill skeleton and in the muscles of the hyoid bone (hyoid).
Internal system
The subordination is divided into three families. Ten species belong to the Old World knifefish, about 215 to the Nile pike and elephant fish, and the Greater Nile pike is the only species of the monotypical family Gymnarchidae. The last two families are combined into one superfamily, the Mormyroidea. A common feature of the Mormyroidea is an electrical organ in the tail stalk, consisting of converted muscle cells, which is used for electrical orientation and communication.
- Suborder knifefish-like (Notopteroidei)
- Old World Knifefish Family (Notopteridae)
- Superfamily Mormyroidea
- Family Nilhechte and Elephantfish (Mormyridae)
- Großnilhecht family (Gymnarchidae)
literature
- Kurt Fiedler: Textbook of Special Zoology, Volume II, Part 2: Fish . Gustav Fischer Verlag . Jena 1991. ISBN 3-334-00339-6
- Wilfried Westheide , Reinhard Rieger: Special Zoology. Part 2: Vertebrae and Skull Animals. 1st edition, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag Heidelberg / Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-8274-0307-3 .