Black Amur

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Black Amur
Black Amur

Black Amur

Systematics
without rank: Otophysa
Order : Carp-like (Cypriniformes)
Subordination : Carp fish-like (Cyprinoidei)
Family : Xenocyprididae
Genre : Mylopharyngodon
Type : Black Amur
Scientific name of the  genus
Mylopharyngodon
Peters , 1881
Scientific name of the  species
Mylopharyngodon piceus
( Richardson , 1846)

The black amur or black grass carp ( Mylopharyngodon piceus ), engl. Black Carp, Chinese  乌 鰡 , Pinyin wūliú or 青魚  /  青鱼 , qīngyú , is a large carp fish originally native to China.

description

Mylopharyngodon piceus is very similar in habit to the grass carp ( Ctenopharyngodon idella ), whereby the black amur differs from the grass carp by a darker mark (dark brown to dark gray depending on the type of water) that gave it its name.

The fish has an elongated, flattened body with large scales, the head and mouth are relatively small, the caudal fin is deeply cut. The species has the following fin formula : dorsal 7–9, anal 7–9 With its powerful pharyngeal teeth, it is able to break open the lids of mussels and snails. The Black Amur can reach a length of one meter with a weight of 30 kilograms.

In 2004, a Black Amur was caught with a rod in the Stone Levee Reservoir in the Anhui Province of China and is considered to be the largest of its kind caught to date. He weighed 72.5 kilograms. The specimen from the Gold Cow Reservoir near Nanjing , which was caught with the network of employees of the reservoir, was even larger, weighing 106 kilograms and 174 centimeters long. It is said that there were even fish 2 meters long in the Yangtze .

distribution

Its original distribution area is East Asia, in China it occurs in many rivers that flow into the Pacific , such as the Pearl River ( Zhu Jiang ) or the Amur (Heilong Jiang), also in Manchuria and southeastern Russia as well as in the Honghe and in the Red River in northern Vietnam. From his native China , he was introduced to numerous countries in Europe , Asia and America . In the United States , four species (black amur, grass carp , silver carp and marble carp ) are grouped together as Asian carp, although the black amur is not as common as the other species.

Way of life

The fish lives near the bottom and feeds mainly on water snails and mussels. The black grass carp lives in a water depth of five to 30 meters with pH values of 7.5 to 8.5. Its habitat are lowland rivers and lakes with clear water and high oxygen concentrations. The Black Amur makes spawning migrations upstream and spawns in open water. It lays pelagic or semi-pelagic fish eggs, which are washed downriver with the current while the young fish hatch. The larvae and later juvenile fish seek out floodplains or water areas with low flow speeds. Young fish eat zooplankton in the early stages. The fish can be over 15 years old; there is no evidence for an age of 20 years.

use

The Black Amur is used as food fish in its homeland and supplies products for Chinese naturopathy . In the polyculture of Chinese pond farming, M. piceus, together with grass carp, silver carp and marble carp, is the most important species that has been cultivated for over a thousand years. Since they are kept in smaller numbers, their meat achieves the highest market price. In China and Japan, black grass carp are popular sport fish among anglers because of their high weights.

Introduction to the USA

In the United States, the Black Amur was introduced to control water snails in aquaculture . Water snails are often intermediate hosts of trematodes and can thus lead to the spread of fish diseases. US law provides that only triploid specimens of M. piceus should be raised in order to have sterile offspring that, even if accidentally ended up in wild waters, will not reproduce any further. In order to produce fish with a triploid gene set, fertile diploid types are again necessary. The release of sterile or fertile Black Amur fish is prohibited in all US states. Nevertheless, wild catches of this species have been made in the Mississippi, White River / Arkansas, Atchafalaya River and Red River in Louisiana and the Osage River in Missouri. Scientists found that some specimens were diploid and can therefore reproduce naturally in the wild. The black amur is seen as a major threat to native mollusc fauna and was classified as a harmful species in 2007.

Systematics

Mylopharyngodon piceus is the only species in the genus Mylopharyngodon .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Black Amur on Fishbase.org (English)
  2. ↑ http://www.fisch-hitparade.de/angeln.php?t=43397
  3. ^ Fishing World Records
  4. ↑ http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=573
  5. ^ Asian Carps
  6. ↑ Mixed culture in pond farming using different food sources, such as B. Grass carp (aquatic plants), silver carp (algae), black amur (mollusks) etc.
  7. ↑ Frida Ben-Ami and Joseph Heller: Biological Control of Aquatic Pest Snails by the Black Carp Mylopharyngodon piceus, doi : 10.1006 / bcon.2001.0967
  8. ^ Nico et al .: Black carp: biological synopsis and risk assessment of an introduced fish. American Fisheries Society Special Publication, 32, pp. 337 ff., 2005