Paradise fish

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Paradise fish
Macropod (Macropodus opercularis)

Macropod ( Macropodus opercularis )

Systematics
Perch relatives (Percomorphaceae)
Order : Climbing fish species (Anabantiformes)
Subordination : Labyrinth fish (Anabantoidei)
Family : Osphronemidae
Subfamily : Macropodusinae
Genre : Paradise fish
Scientific name
Macropodus
Lacépède , 1801

Paradise fish ( Macropodus ), also macropods or large rafts , are a genus from the suborder of the labyrinth fish and are distributed with currently four known species in Southeast and East Asia.

features

Macropodus are labyrinth fish , that is, they have over the gill arches lying air pocket , called the maze, the walls of a highly vascular and able for gas exchange tissue exist. The air for this additional breathing is taken in at the surface of the water with the mouth, while at the same time the used air is expelled through the gill cover . All macropod species are so adapted to this accessory breathing that the gill function only plays a subordinate role. If you prevent them from entering the atmosphere, they drown. The formation of the labyrinth organ is an adaptation to low-oxygen conditions and at the same time enables unsuitable habitats for other fish species to be developed . All macropod species have all the classic body characteristics of the suborder Anabantoidei and represent the most original and least specialized genus within the subfamily Macropodusinae . Besides the characteristic large-area unpaired fins , there is only one common external characteristic, which is the monophyletic origin of the Macropods are characterized by: the eye or opercular spot on the gill cover. The oval body, which is only slightly compressed laterally, reaches its greatest height in front of the attachment of the long dorsal fin, which in males tapering widely . The anal fin , which starts just behind the pectoral fins, is also extensive and extends with its tip into the last third of the caudal fin , in male Macropodus ocellatus it even extends well beyond it. The lateral line organ is severely regressed or completely absent. The body is completely scaled. Macropods are not large freshwater fish. Females reach about eight centimeters, males about twelve centimeters total length. Fin formula (according to Paepke): Dorsals X – XIX / 5–11, Anals XV – XXII / 8–15, Caudals 13–17, Pectorals 9–16.

distribution

Macropod , on the left the female, on the right the male. In the male, the branching of the caudal fin rays can be clearly seen

Macropods are widespread in East Asia and have one species in northeastern Southeast Asia.

In Macropodus opercularis and Macropodus ocellatus , which occur syntopically on the Chinese mainland and in Vietnam , the allochthonous distribution plays a major role. Macropodus opercularis is considered a neozoon in Korea . The original distributions of these species, especially the island populations, cannot be reliably reconstructed. This also applies to Macropodus spechti , which was described in 1936 without an exact location from "Dutch India" ( Sunda Islands ), where it could only be detected again around 1984 and has not been detected again since. It is largely doubted that this species occurs naturally on Borneo.

ecology

Macropods very successfully colonize all standing and flowing inland waters . This also includes ponds , canals and rice fields created by humans as well as natural temporary bodies of water and alluvial land . As a rule, there is no coming submerged growing aquatic plants before, but algae , floating plants , and flooded or in the water outstanding land vegetation such as leafy branches or grass. Unless the remaining water is drying out, in which only labyrinth fish can exist, a large number of other fish species, crabs , shrimps , snails and other invertebrates are always detected in the habitats . Even if these other fish stocks are very dense and predators are numerous, all macropod species can hold their own. Often they are even the dominant fish species. Their successful distribution is the result of their independence from oxygen dissolved in water , the reproductive strategy of building foam nests, which is detached from hiding places and substrates, and the renunciation of a special food spectrum. Macropods feed on plant detritus , copepods , small crustaceans , insect larvae , young crabs, shrimp, snails, flatworms , freshwater polyps , fry of other species and on approaching insects . Thanks to the ability to put the mouth forward, macropods are also able to catch relatively large nutritional animals. In addition, they also master a prey jumping technique with which they prey on flying insects above the surface of the water.
Only Macropodus ocellatus can persist in regions that are regularly exposed to frost. All other species are dependent on changing but warmer water temperatures.

Reproduction

Sexually mature male macropods occupy territories near the surface of the water, within the limits of which they become ready to reproduce while the readiness for defense intensifies . From the air absorbed on the surface of the water, which is coated in the mouth with saliva secretion and thereby formed into stabilized bubbles, they build a foam nest on the free surface of the water, less often under water plant leaves . They only use air bubbles and no parts of plants, as the eastern and western threadfish do. The foam nests can only consist of a few bubbles, but they can also be up to 15 centimeters in diameter and protrude beyond the water by a finger's thickness. Females that are ready to spawn and approach these breeding grounds must first overcome the male's territorial defense. This happens within the framework of ritualized inferiority gestures accompanied by latent aggressive behavior , which trigger a lead swim in the direction of the foam nest in the male, which then leads to the actual and many times repeated act of spawning. Macropods produce small transparent swimming eggs which they collect with their mouths after spawning and spit or embed directly into the foam nest. Mostly the females also take part in this, taking on the defense of the territory and the male during the two to three days of very intensive brood care by the male. After 36 to 48 hours, the larvae hatch and slowly spread apart. First of all, she repeatedly collects the male and spits them into the center of the nest. The larvae leave the nest area about two days after hatching. The male becomes increasingly aggressive again and starts building nests again while the female leaves the breeding ground. In the case of Macropodus spechti males, after hatching, when the larvae begin to move on their own, care increases more than with the other macropods. Stallknecht reported spontaneous mouthbrood care of this species: A male took more than 300 juvenile fish from the foam nest in his mouth and carried them with him for about an hour. This observation is interesting because the labyrinth fish have developed mouthbrood care several times and independently of each other , for which this fish family, in which the mouth plays an important role in brood care, must have special genetic predispositions.

Systematics

Macropode , representation of Macropodus opercularis in "Natural history of foreign fish" by Marcus Elieser Bloch , 1790 published. This fish, called Chaetodon chinensis by Bloch , was mistaken for Marcropodus ocellatus for a long time .

The systematics of the labyrinth fish of East and Southeast Asia has not been researched anywhere near satisfactory and is constantly changing. Very stable, well-determined species such as the giant gouramis (genus Osphronemus ) or the kissing guramis (genus Helostoma ) are opposed to genus complexes that are in an ongoing evolutionary process ( fighting fish , genus Betta ; magnificent dwarf gouramis , genus Parosphromenus ) and their species development is not yet complete is. Both are true of the macropods. Macropodus opercularis , the most widespread species, has different appearances in terms of its coloration, body size and markings, but can always be clearly addressed in direct comparison with its sister species and on the basis of classic characteristics. This is not always the case when comparing just a few populations of this species with one another. This is how the most recent synonym descriptions by Nguyen, Ngo & Nguyen emerged, which only separated three local forms collected in Vietnam without establishing a larger context. The situation is similar with the group of forms around Macropodus spechti, which is growing through constant collections (always listed as Macropodus concolor in the scientific and more popular literature until 2002 ), of which there are also two more recent synonym descriptions and, with Macropodus hongkongensis , a controversial taxon. Only Macropodus ocellatus shows a uniform shape and color at all previous sites. According to more recent work by Kottelat and Winstanley & Clements, the genre is as follows:

Macropodus Lacépède , 1801.

Generic synonym : Pedites Gistel , 1848

with the types:

Synonyms: Labrus opercularis Linnaeus , 1758; Chaetodon chinensis Bloch , 1790; Macropodus ctenopsoides Brind , 1915; Macropodus filamentosus Oshima , 1919; Macropodus venustus Cuvier (in Cuvier & Valenciennes), 1831; Macropodus viridiauratus Lacépède , 1801; Macropodus baviensis Nguyen & Nguyen , 2005; Macropodus lineatus Nguyen , Ngo & Nguyen , 2005; Macropodus oligolepis Nguyen , Ngo & Nguyen , 2005
Synonym: Polyacanthus paludosus Richardson , 1846
Synonyms: Macropodus opercularis var. Spechti Schreitmüller , 1936; Macropodus opercularis concolor Ahl , 1937; Macropodus erythropterus Freyhof & Herder , 2002; Macropodus phongnhaensis Ngo , Nguyen & Nguyen , 2005

In 2005 three Vietnamese ichthyologists described four other macropod species ( Macropodus baviensis, M. lineatus, M. oligolepis, M. phongnhaensis ), which were later synonymous with Macropodus opercularis , are considered nouns dubium or whose status is uncertain for other reasons.

Importance to humans

Small freshwater fish are also important sources of protein in Southeast and East Asia. Macropodus opercularis is one of the fish species that are important for human consumption there, which are often brought to rice fields and later fished. Monsieur Gerauld, officer on the "L'Imperatrice", a merchant ship of the French "Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes" received about one hundred fork-tailed macropods from the French consul Simon in the east Chinese port city of Ningbo in 1869, 22 of which arrived alive in France. The "Piscineur" Pierre Carbonnier , who lives in Paris , succeeded in breeding and just two years later he was able to offer around 600 pairs for sale. The tropical aquarium hobby began with these Macropodus opercularis , because - with the exception of the pet goldfish - exotic freshwater fish had never been kept in European aquariums before. In 1876, the Berlin pet shop Gebrüder Sasse introduced the first paradise fish to Germany and asked for 50 marks for a pair.

Fork-tailed macropods, commercially bred millions of times, are now part of the standard range of the aquarium fish trade worldwide. There are different breeding lines, each with a higher proportion of red or blue in the body color, as well as a xanthoristic breed and real albinos. Macropodus spechti , also a popular aquarium fish, is only traded seasonally and in significantly smaller numbers. Very few specialists deal with the sensitive round-tailed macropod. In addition to the "mass-produced goods", a small group of ambitious enthusiasts maintains various populations of all four species with precisely known origins, mostly they are organized in the International Association for Labyrinth Fish (IGL) . Macropodus opercularis was and is variously the focus of behavioral research.

literature

  • Paepke, H.-J. (1994): The Paradise Fish: Genus Macropodus . In: The New Brehm Library . Volume 616. Westarp Sciences, Magdeburg. ISBN 3-89432-406-6 .
  • Freyhof, J. & F. Herder (2002): Review of the paradise fishes of the genus Macropodus in Vietnam, with description of two new species from Vietnam and southern China (Perciformes: Osphronemidae) . Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters (13): 147-167.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maurice Kottelat (2001): Freshwater Fishes of Northern Vietnam. A preliminary check-list of the fishes known or expected to occur in northern Vietnam with comments on systematics and nomenclature . World Bank, Washington DC
  2. ↑ Winstanley, T. & KD Clements (2008): Morphological re-examination and taxonomy of the genus Macropodus (Perciformes: Osphromenidae) . Zootaxa (1908): 1-27.
  3. ^ Nguyen, VH (2005): Ca Nuoc Ngot Viet Nam. Tap III (The Freshwater Fish of Vietnam, Part III) . Há Nôi, Nhá Xuâ't Ban Nông Nghiêp.
  4. ↑ Maurice Kottelat (2013): The fishes of the inland waters of Southeast Asia: A catalog and core bibliography of the fishes known to occur in freshwaters, mangroves and estuaries. (PDF; 6.6 MB) The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, November 2013, Supplement No. 27. Page 453 a. 454
  5. ↑ Guide pratique du pisciculteur Paris, 1864, Pierre Carbonnier

Web links

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