Wasp fish
| Wasp fish | ||||||||||||
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Apistus carinatus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Apistidae | ||||||||||||
| Kaup , 1873 |
The wasp fish (Apistidae) are a species-poor family of marine fish from the order of the perch-like (Perciformes). They live as bottom dwellers in the western Indo-Pacific and are predatory fish that spend the day buried in the sea floor and hunt at night.
features
Wasp fish grow to be about eight inches long. Their pectoral fins are greatly elongated and resemble insect wings. Three pectoral fin rays are free and have no connection through a membrane. There are three barbels on the chin that are used to track down hidden prey. The swim bladder is divided into two parts. Like the scorpion fish, the wasp fish have fin rays that can give off a very strong poison.
Systematics
There are three types , in three monotypical genera.
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Apistops Ogilby, 1911
- Apistops caloundra (De Vis, 1886)
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Apistus Cuvier, 1829
- Bearded wasp fish ( Apistus carinatus ) (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
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Cheroscorpaena Mees, 1964
- Cheroscorpaena tridactyla Mees, 1964
The wasp fish are closely related to the stone fish (Synanceiidae). A characteristic that they share with the stonefish is a saber-shaped, defensive outgrowth of the lacrimals , the teardrop sabers . Smith, Everman and Richardson therefore propose to assign the wasp fish as a subfamily to the stone fish.
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World , John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
- Bergbauer, Myers, Kirschner: The cosmos handbook dangerous marine animals. ISBN 978-3-440-10945-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Smith, WL, Everman, E. & Richardson, C. (2018): Phylogeny and Taxonomy of Flatheads, Scorpionfishes, Sea Robins, and Stonefishes (Percomorpha: Scorpaeniformes) and the Evolution of the Lachrymal Saber. Copeia 106 (1): 94-119. 2018 doi: 10.1643 / CG-17-669
Web links
- Wasp fish on Fishbase.org (English)