Ship owner

This article describes species of fish. Further meanings are listed under ship owner (disambiguation) .

Ship owner
Remora brachyptera
Systematics
Spinefish (Acanthopterygii) Perch relatives (Percomorphaceae) Carangaria Order : Carangiformes Subordination : Mackerel relatives (Carangoidei) Family : Ship owner
Scientific name
Echeneidae
Rafinesque , 1810

Suction plate at Echeneis naucrates

An Atlantic nurse shark with ship keepers of the genus Remora

Ship owner on a green turtle

Shipkeeper in the Bay of Marsa Murena from the front

The ship keepers (Echeneidae) are a family of the mackerel relatives (Carangiformes). They are slender fish, which with the help of a suction plate that has formed from the front part of the dorsal fin , backwards to larger fish, e.g. B. sharks or marine mammals , to be taken away like this: phoresia . Occasionally, they also try to attach themselves to divers. In addition, ship owners have the opportunity to participate in the host animal's meals, enjoy the protection of the larger animal and probably rid it of parasites .

Ship owners have been known since ancient times. They have a habit of sucking themselves onto the hulls of ships, which is probably where their name came from. Aristotle and Pliny reported about them.

features

Ship keepers have an elongated body covered by small scales and are 30 centimeters to 1.10 meters long. Its head is flattened and carries the suction organ formed from the first, hard-radiating part of the dorsal fin on the upper side. The suction organ consists of 10 to 28 movable lamellae, which are surrounded by a fleshy edge. It is already developed in young fish of 27 mm in length. The lower jaw is longer than the upper jaw ("upper jaw"). The dorsal and anal fin are symmetrically opposite each other and are supported by 18 to 45 fin rays. They don't have hard rays. A swim bladder is missing. The number of Branchiostegal rays is eight to eleven, the number of eddies between 26 and 41.

External system

The ship keepers belong to the family of jacks (Carangiformes). Its sister group is a clade consisting of the Cobia ( Rachycentron canadum ) and the golden mackerel ( Coryphaena ). The likely family relationships are shown in the following cladogram :

	Carangiformes    Jackfish  (Carangidae)      Roosterfish  (Nematistiidae)   Echenoidea    Golden mackerel  (Coryphaenidae)      Cobias  (Rachycentridae)      Ship  keeper (Echeneidae)

species

There are eight species in three genera:

• Echeneis
  • Striped ship holder ( Echeneis naucrates Linnaeus , 1758 )
  • Echeneis neucratoides Zuiew, 1786
• Phtheirichthys
  • Louse fish ( Phtheirichthys lineatus (Menzies, 1791) )
• Remora
  • White ship keeper ( Remorina albescens ( Temminck & Schlegel , 1850) )
  • Remora australis (Bennett, 1840)
  • Remora brachyptera (Lowe, 1839)
  • Remora osteochir ( Cuvier , 1829)
  • Common ship keeper ( Remora remora (Linnaeus, 1758) )

The extinct species Echeneis glaronensis is known from the lower Oligocene of Glarus in Switzerland .

See also

• Pilot fish

literature

• Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World. Wileys, Hoboken 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
• Kurtis N. Gray, Jan R. McDowell, Bruce B. Collette, and John E. Graves: A Molecular Phylogeny of the Remoras and their Relatives. In: Bulletin of Marine Science. Vol. 84, No. 2, 2009, pp. 183-198 ( PDF file ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Albert Frickhinger: Fossil Atlas of Fishes. Mergus-Verlag, Melle 1999, ISBN 3-88244-018-X , p. 818.

Web links

Commons : Schiffshalter (Echeneidae)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ship owner on Fishbase.org (English)