Archer fish
Archer fish | ||||||||||||
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
Toxotidae | ||||||||||||
Bleeker , 1859 | ||||||||||||
Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
Toxotes | ||||||||||||
Cuvier , 1816 |
The archer fish ( Toxotes ) live in the tropical Indo-Pacific from India via the Philippines , Australia to Polynesia in coastal seawater, brackish and fresh waters, mostly in mangrove stocks . They get their name from their ability to use a targeted jet of water to "shoot" insects that are sitting on plants and that have fallen on the surface of the water and are eaten by them. The 12 to 40 cm long animals live socially in small groups.
features
The body of the archerfish is flattened on the sides and 1.8 to 2.5 times longer than it is high. The eyes and mouth are large, the mouth is terminal, with a protruding lower jaw, and can be pushed forward far (protractile). The dorsal fin has four to six hard and 11 to 14 soft rays , the anal fin has three hard and 15 to 18 soft rays. It is always longer than the dorsal fin and its soft-rayed section is always longer than the corresponding part of the dorsal fin.
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Reproduction
Archerfish spawn for a period shorter than two months during the monsoons . Depending on their weight, the females lay 20,000 to 150,000 pelagic eggs. The larvae are approx. 2 mm long when they hatch and feed on microplankton, which is abundant during the monsoon season as a result of nutrient input from rivers.
species
- Toxotes blythii Boulenger , 1892 - Freshwater in Myanmar.
- Spotted archerfish ( Toxotes chatareus (Hamilton, 1822) )
- Archerfish ( Toxotes jaculatrix ( Pallas , 1767) )
- Toxotes kimberleyensis Allen, 2004 - Kimberley region , northwestern Australia.
- Lorentz Archerfish ( Toxotes lorentzi ) Weber, 1910 - Freshwater in New Guinea and Northern Australia.
- Toxotes mekongensis Kottelat & Tan, 2018 - Mekong basin in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
- Small- scale archerfish ( Toxotes microlepis Günther , 1860 ) - Indochina.
- Large- scaled archerfish ( Toxotes oligolepis Bleeker , 1876 )
- Toxotes siamensis Kottelat & Tan, 2018 - Chao Phraya river basin in Thailand.
- Toxotes sundaicus Kottelat & Tan, 2018 - in fresh waters on Borneo, Sumatra and possibly also on the Malay Peninsula.
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World , John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Simon Kumar Das, Yosni Bakar, Mazlan AG, Zaidi Che Cob, Abdullah Samat, Aziz Bin Arshad, Shelby E Temple & Nancy J Brown-Peterson: Aspects of the reproductive biology of two archer fishes Toxotes chatareus , (Hamilton 1822) and Toxotes jaculatrix (Pallas 1767). Environmental Biology of Fishes 93 (4): 491-503 April 2012 DOI: 10.1007 / s10641-011-9944-6
- ↑ a b c Kottelat, M. & Hui, TH (2018): Three new species of archerfishes from the freshwaters of Southeast Asia (Teleostei: Toxotidae) and notes on Henri Mouhot's fish collections. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, May 2018, DOI: 10.23788 / IEF-952
Web links
- Archer fish on Fishbase.org (English)
- Martin Vieweg: Target group-oriented firepower. In: Wissenschaft.de. October 10, 2006, accessed September 8, 2019 .
- Jens Lubbadeh: Archer fish: The nimble water pistoleros. In: Spiegel Online . January 3, 2008, accessed January 2, 2017 .