Osteichthyes General Characteristics and Examples
After reading this article you will learn about Osteichthyes General Characteristics and Examples
Osteichthyes General Characteristics
- Fresh water or marine
- Endoskeleton mostly bony. Expect the sturgeons.
- Skin usually covered with scales but placoid scales absent
- Gill slits covered by operculum
- Air bladder present
- Spiral valves absent in intestine
- Males without claspers, fertilization is external.
- They are oviparous
Osteichthyes Examples
Labeo rohita (rohu)
- Found in fresh water
- This fish serves as a popular delicious fish
Hippocampus (sea horse)
- The male bears brood pouch in which female lays eggs and remain there till they hatch
- Parental care is performed by male
Exocoetus (flying fish)
- The pectoral fins are modified into wing-like structures, with the help of which the fish glides.
Anguilla (fresh water eel)
- It has a long snake like body
- Adult male and female fishes migrate from river to sea where they lay eggs and die. (catadromous migration)
- The young which hatches from egg is called leptocephalus (larva of eel)
- Larvae are so transparent that they are called glass fishes
- They feed and grow in sea for 2 or 3 years, then enter the river and undergo metamorphosis to become adults
Gambusia (mosquito fish)
- It feeds on the mosquito larvae
- Widely used to control mosquito
Tenualosa (hilsa)
- It is a very popular food fish in the Indian
- Adult male and female fishes migrate from sea to river where they lay eggs and die. (anadromous migration)
Prototerous (African lung fish)
- Gills are weakly developed
- Respiration is supplemented with two lungs
- It undergoes aestivation during summer season
Latimeria (Coelacanth)
- It is a living fossill which was taken off from the eastern coast of South Africa
- It is believed that crossopterygians (fleshy finned fish) were the ancestors of the first amphibians
- It is a connecting link between fishes and amphibians.
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