African mudfish
| African mudfish | ||||||||||||
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Drawing from the first description by George Albert Boulenger. |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the subfamily | ||||||||||||
| Phractolaeminae | ||||||||||||
| Boulenger , 1901 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Phractolaemus | ||||||||||||
| Boulenger, 1901 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Phractolaemus ansorgii | ||||||||||||
| Boulenger, 1901 |
The African mud fish ( Phractolaemus ansorgii ) is a small freshwater fish of the family of kneriidae (Kneriidae).
Appearance
It resembles a loach , has a slender, cylinder-shaped body and becomes 15 to 19 centimeters long. The narrow, six-pointed, towering dorsal fin sits in the middle. The head is small, the mouth tiny, almost without teeth and can be stretched out like a trunk (see DEF Thys van den Audenaarde 1962). Sexually mature males have two rows of small spines on the very short tail stalk and four large nodules around the eye, the latter is a hallmark of the Ostariophysi . The fish is brown-gray, darker above, lighter on the flanks and below. The fins are reddish. The swim bladder serves the African mudfish as an auxiliary respiratory organ.
- Fin formula : dorsal 6 (2 branched, 4 unbranched rays), anal 6.
Occurrence
The African mudfish has two widely separated distribution areas: in West Africa in Nigeria in the Niger Delta and in Central Africa at the confluence of the Congo and Ubangi . There it lives ground-oriented in muddy, heavily overgrown small bodies of water.
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World . John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
- Günther Sterba : The world's freshwater fish. 2nd Edition. Urania, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-332-00109-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas J. Near, Alex Dornburga, Matt Friedman: Phylogenetic relationships and timing of diversification in gonorynchiform fishes inferred using nuclear gene DNA sequences (Teleostei: Ostariophysi). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, DOI: 0.1016 / j.ympev.2014.07.013
- ↑ Betancur-R, R., E. Wiley, N. Bailly, M. Miya, G. Lecointre & G. Ortí. 2014. Phylogenetic Classification of Bony Fishes --Version 3 ( Memento from August 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) .
Web links
- African mudfish on Fishbase.org (English)
- Phractolaemus ansorgii inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Posted by: Lalèyè, P., Moelants, T. & Olaosebikan, BD, 2009. Retrieved December 13, 2013.