Ethology of Fishes

Mag
ada
PPT
24
Camouflaging
Camouflaging
Out of the blue: Beautiful shoal of sardines captured by
Nadya Kulagina
Labrynths-air breathing
Team Work…
 Atlantic Sailfish, caught on camera by Reinhard in Isla Mujeres, Mexico,
can be seen in large groups darting in and out of schools of favourite prey
sardines. It moves at a speed of 75 mph
Apogonidae (Cardinalfishes)
Jaw fish-Opistognathus rhomaleus
Territorial behaviuor
Agonistic acts of decapod crustaceans
(Jachowski 1974; Bark et al., 1991)
Mouth brooders – original mobile homes
Keeping eggs even closer to home - in
your own mouth - works even better
for some fish like Haplochromine
cichlids, arowana and marine
cardinalfish. By holding them in their
mouths cichlid mothers, or fathers in
other species, can become mobile
homes, removing themselves from
danger and taking their developing
eggs and fry to areas of food and
controlled release. If you were a small
egg predator, would you risk swimming
up to an arowana to see what it had in
its mouth?
Fighter fish constructing a bubble nest
Angel fish laid eggs on aquatic plant
Left: Gonopodium; modified anal fin
Right: female sword tail
• Female jewel fish
laid egg on hard
substrate
• Male fish guarding
the eggs
Mobile eggs
So you're a fish, you know mouthbrooding works pretty well but you just don't have the
gob to be able to incubate your eggs. You still like the movement thing though as that
makes sense, so you lay sticky eggs like your cousins do only this time you stick them to
your own body so you can swim off, away from predators and still breed.
The Rice fish do a wonderful job of sticking eggs to their abdomens until they find
somewhere better to put them, some South American whiptail catfish carry eggs under
their lip while some Geophagine cichlids lay eggs on a leaf, then pick the leaf up and move
that. Pretty cool hey?
Babies are coming out from mouth
Arowana eggs with yolk sac
THANK YOU