Catching butterflies is a favorite pastime of many naturalists, but the sea butterfly fish is visible only to scuba diving enthusiasts. This amazing fish from the bristletooth family lives near reefs. With its bright coloring, this fish resembles a motley butterfly.
The bristletooths got their name from their small teeth, split upwards, and their small mouth and tube-like lips help them get food from the narrow crevices of coral reefs. On average, they grow up to 20 cm. The smallest representatives are 15 cm fish. There are also large specimens, about 30 cm. The dorsal fin, which continues the line of the body, gives this fish a square or triangular shape. They are quite large-headed, with a flattened body and a relatively short caudal fin. The coloring of this fish varies from yellow to orange, sometimes black is also found.
Butterfly fish use their colors to camouflage themselves. Most often these are bright spots or stripes that lead predators astray due to their resemblance to an eye; more often than not, several colors vary there at once. It is this coloring that helps them blend in with the colorful reefs and escape from predators. The most common coloration, predominant in most fish of this species, is a cluster of spots on the caudal fin.
Lattice butterflyfish (Chaetodon rafflesi).
The natural habitat is salty water oceans in the equatorial and tropical zone. They can be found in some parts Pacific Ocean, they are present more often and in greater quantities in the Caribbean. But their choice of main home remains unchanged - without exception, these are reefs, and occasionally algae. Butterfly fish are amazing housebuilders; they will enthusiastically drive a stranger away from the chosen reef, perfectly distinguish their own from their neighbor, and almost never swim away from their home. Their activity peaks during daylight hours. At night they try to hide in crevices. If you see these fish divided into pairs, let them know mating season. Otherwise they stay in a flock.
They reproduce by free-floating eggs. The fry, emerging from the eggs, have bony fins on their heads for a short period of time. They cannot be called numerous, but they are not classified as endangered either.
In his natural environment habitats often become victims of predatory fish. And fishermen love to catch them, because delicious meat. Although there are known cases of butterfly fish poisoning. The fact is that they can feed on the tentacles of poisonous reefs. And, having accumulated a large number of poisons in your body, can be poisoned and therefore dangerous when consumed. Therefore, if you decide to eat the meat of this fish, remember about ciguatera poisoning.
They practically do not take root in aquariums due to the difficulty of keeping them. Such as salt water and special vitamins. But, even if you manage to create the necessary habitat, they become extremely aggressive in a confined space. Based on all this, and once deciding
It's no secret that, despite the incredible progress of science and human civilization in general, there are still no answers to many questions regarding what is created by nature. Particularly unknown remains water world with many living organisms, the origin of which is unknown to this day. In the depths of the ocean, sea and rivers sometimes live such unusual creatures that impress with both their appearance, and behavior. One of these extraordinary species is the pantodon fish or, as it is also called, butterfly fish or mothfish. Scientists find it difficult to answer the question of how it could live for more than 100 million years and still remain in its original appearance. That is, it did not evolve, and was not affected by the process of change in any way environment. Moreover, it is now successfully kept in home aquariums. What kind of amazing creature is this, let's find out.
Range and habitats
IN wildlife The butterfly fish lives in stagnant bodies of water in West Africa; it can be found in Nigeria, Cameroon, and in the Congo and Zambezi river basins. They live in streams, creeks, swampy rivers and lakes with dense vegetation and warm water, up to +30 °C.
Pantodon spends most of its time not in the water, but above its surface; this predator freezes on the surface of the water and waits for its victims: insects flying over the reservoir, larvae or fry that carelessly swim by. In the water, the butterfly fish hides in dense vegetation; it is a good conspirator, because thanks to its color it resembles a dried leaf.
Important! Pantodon is not very active during the day; it goes hunting at night. Living in its natural environment, the fish is able to jump after prey to a height of more than 2 m.
Description
The mothfish has a large triangular head, in comparison with which the body appears short. She has a large mouth, inside of which are hidden triple jaws, 2 at the bottom and one at the top. In the wild, the size of the fish reaches 12 cm; when kept in an aquarium, its length does not exceed 10 cm. The pectoral fins resemble a fan or butterfly wings and look very decorative.
The caudal fin also looks quite original; it has a rounded shape, and in its central part there are 4-6 elongated threads. Antenna filaments are also a continuation of the ventral fins.
The fish is painted in a muted bronze color with brown or black spots and streaks. And what makes her especially decorative are the golden sparkles, which adorn her entire body with their shine.
Important! The swim bladder of the pantodon has several functions, in addition to its usual purpose (maintaining balance in the water column), it serves to store the air that this fish is able to breathe.
It’s worth noting right away that keeping such a fish at home is not at all easy, and it’s better for a novice aquarist not to mess with it. She is very picky, and caring for her is quite labor-intensive. For a comfortable existence of a pair of fish, a low (up to 30 cm) but wide aquarium is required. Mothfish have high requirements for water parameters:
- temperature - +25...+30 °C;
- hardness dH - up to 12;
- acidity pH - 6.0-7.5;
- volume - from 50 l;
- depth - 15-20 cm.
Pantodons do not tolerate bright lighting well, so the light in the aquarium should be dimmed; a variety of floating plants can help with this, which will create a shading effect and allow the fish to hide from discomfort. Air filtration and aeration are naturally necessary, but the air flow should be veiled so that no current is created.
An aquarium with mothfish should definitely be covered with glass, since they are excellent jumpers. The distance from water to glass should be approximately 5-15 cm.
Did you know? When setting up an aquarium, it is better to put pebbles on the bottom rather than sand, since the sandy soil will be washed out with each water change, but this will not harm the stones.
Feeding and food
The aquarium butterfly fish is very picky about food. She does not perceive everything that falls to the bottom as food. For a predator, live flies, spiders, crickets, larvae, worms are needed, as a last resort - fresh meat, shrimp and shellfish, but in no case dry food. It can cause vitamin deficiency and malaise in the fish.
In order to facilitate the feeding process, you can place a bark on the surface of the water and lay out food for the fish on it.
Compatibility with other inhabitants
The best neighbors for pantodon will be fish, which live in the center of the aquarium or on its bottom, and also have a friendly character. They definitely won’t get along with other surface inhabitants.
Although the most the best option the mothfish will be kept in a separate aquarium, in which case there will certainly not be any unpleasant situations associated with conflicts and eating the offspring.
Sex differences
The presence of an anal fin makes it possible to distinguish the sex of fish. In males it has long rays, and between them there is a deep notch. And in females the anal fin is rounded and smooth. Males are usually smaller than females.
Breeding
It is very difficult to breed pantodons at home. They become sexually mature at the age of 12-18 months. In order to stimulate spawning, it is necessary to gradually reduce the water level in the aquarium to 10 cm over 3 weeks. It also has great importance its temperature and softness, the water should be warm: from +28 ° C and above.
After a short courtship period, the female and male mate. After this, the female lays eggs for 2-3 days, transparent and very fatty, due to which they float to the surface. When the eggs darken (after about 10-12 hours), they must be collected and placed in a separate aquarium, in which the larvae will appear in a week, and after two weeks the fry will begin to feed on their own. They should be fed aphids, shrimp, flies, and a little later you can add small bloodworms to their diet.
Did you know? Goldfish are considered one of the most popular inhabitants of the aquarium. A representative of this species named Fred lived for 41 years, for which he is recognized as a centenarian.
Health and illness
Pantodon is a fish that requires constant attention and care on the part of the aquarist. Diseases can be caused by both deterioration of water parameters and poor nutrition. In hard water, the butterfly fish's fins are gradually destroyed, and it also loses its appetite. It is not recommended to feed them with dry food, as it causes vitamin deficiency in the fish.
You can determine that the pantodon is unwell by the fact that it refuses food and spends most of its time not on the surface, but on the bottom of the aquarium.
The only kind monotypic sort of Pantodon , which stands out as a separate family freshwater butterfly fish, or moth(Pantodontidae). Some ichthyologists attribute this genus to the subfamily Osteoglossinae of the family Aravanidae(Osteoglossidae). Anyway freshwater fish-the butterfly is closely related to Aravanidae and not related to seaweeds butterfly fish.
Description
Body length is up to 12 cm, but usually does not exceed 10 cm. The body is laterally compressed, the head and back are slightly flattened on top. The mouth is upper, wide with numerous teeth located on opener , palate And jaws. The nostrils are extended into tubes. Pelvic fins with 4 long thread-like rays are located under large and wide pectoral fins, similar to butterfly wings. The short dorsal fin is located at the end of the back, just in front of the caudal peduncle, behind the anal fin. There are 6 soft rays in the dorsal fin, 9-15 in the anal fin, no hard ones. The caudal fin is long, pointed with two elongated central rays. The scales are cycloid, large, rounded. IN lateral line 26-30 scales. There are 8 rays of the gill membrane. The subopercular bone of the gill cover is absent, and sometimes the interopercular bone is also absent. 30 vertebrae.
The coloring of butterfly fish of both sexes is the same, top part the body is coffee-olive with a regular pattern of alternating darker transverse stripes and spots, the underparts are yellow with dark purple spots, silvery. The fins are coffee pink with a purple tint on the inner surface and along the edges and with small brownish-purple spots forming transverse stripes on the pectoral fins. The base of the pelvic fins is carmine red. Silver-golden sparkles are scattered throughout the body and fins. The male is brighter, slimmer and smaller than the female, he has a larger span of pectoral fins, the lower edge of his anal fin has a rather deep notch, while in the female it is straight. In addition, during the spawning period in males, the middle rays of this fin thicken and form a tube that serves as a copulatory organ for internal fertilization of females.
Spreading
Lives in fresh standing waters Western And Central Africa: V Nigeria , Cameroon, pool Lakes Chad, river basins Congo And Ogowe (Gabon), upper reaches Zambezi. Eastern border range runs along the river Weme V Benin and the Jong River in Sierra Leone. Inhabits swamps standing areas densely overgrown with plants rivers, river oxbows , streams And backwaters with water temperature +23…+30 °C. Sometimes it is found in small lakes, lost in the thick of the tropical forest.
Lifestyle
Lives near the surface of the water. Feeds on larvae and pupae mosquitoes , crustaceans, fish fry, collects insects that have fallen on the water, and also hunts for insects flying over water bodies, for which it jumps out of the water. It also jumps out in case of danger, escaping from predators. It is not capable of gliding, but it has great ballistic jumping power, thanks to which it is able to “fly” over water for a distance of up to 2-3 m.
Able to breathe atmospheric air with the help of swim bladder.
Popular aquarium fish. To keep butterfly fish you need low aquarium 20-30 cm high with large area a water mirror with a volume of at least 100 liters, which is tightly covered with a lid or glass on top. The distance between the surface of the water and the lid should be about 10-15 cm. Maintenance conditions: water temperature +25...+30 °C, pH 6,0-7,2, hardness of water 2-10 °dH (maximum - 15 °dH), aeration, filtration (filter with peat filler), water change and flow. Plant the aquarium with plants with wide floating leaves, under which these fish usually spend time daytime. By evening, they usually perk up and begin to hunt for various aerial insects.
IN calm state The butterfly fish swims near the surface of the water with splayed pectoral fins, their ends touching the surface, and downward ventral fins with long thread-like rays, which are very vulnerable to aggressive aquarium fish. Therefore, it is recommended to keep butterfly fish only with bottom-dwelling fish.
Spawning games usually occur at dusk or at night. The male, swimming in a fluttering “flight” around the female in elongated spirals, periodically copulates with her. The interval between copulations is from 3 to 12 minutes, the number of copulations is 5-10. Milt introduced by the male once, apparently, can be preserved, since subsequent laying of eggs is sometimes carried out without secondary fertilization. After several copulations, the female is usually placed in a separate aquarium with a capacity of about 50 liters (for example, 60x40x25 cm). As the female matures, she spawns from 80 to 220 already fertilized brownish eggs with a diameter of about 1.5 mm into the thicket of floating plants. The eggs are pelagic and develop by floating near the surface of the water. The eggs are removed immediately, otherwise the producers may eat them. Incubation period at a temperature of +25…+28 °C lasts 36-50 hours. Larvae that have switched to external feeding are fed live, freshly caught and slightly dried directly in the net. Daphnia And moinami, which in this state do not sink to the bottom, are Cyclopes, Artemia, small mosquito larvae Culex , fruit fly larvae fruit flies , fools, grindalom. Juveniles mature at the age of 12-16 months. Adult fish are fed insects: crickets, flies, mayflies, beetles, grasshoppers, fillies, bloodworm, cockroaches, flour crunches, their larvae ( mealworms) and pupae, etc., as well as pieces of earthworms and small fish. Before feeding, they are often treated with microdoses of vitamins and hormones. If such food is not available, it can be replaced with pieces raw meat, shrimp, shellfish, including oysters. When feeding dry food, it may develop avitaminosis. The first sign of an abnormal condition of fish is sinking to the bottom or into the middle layers of water (of course, if this is not a dream or fear).
Under optimal conditions in an aquarium, it grows up to 15 cm in length and lives up to 6 years.
Notes
- Life of animals. Volume 4. Lancelets. Cyclostomes. Cartilaginous fish. Bony fish/ ed. T.S.Rassa, ch. ed. V.E.Sokolov. - 2nd ed. - M.: Education, 1983. - P. 201-202. - 575 p.
- Biological encyclopedic Dictionary/ Ch. ed. M. S. Gilyarov; Editorial: A. A. Baev, G. G. Vinberg, G. A. Zavarzin and others - M.: Sov. encyclopedia, 1986. - P. 34. - 831 p. - 100,000 copies.
- Ilyin M. N. Aquarium fish farming. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 1977. - 303 p.
- Systematic list of vertebrates in zoological collections as of 01/01/2012 // Andreeva T. F., Vershinina T. A., Goretskaya M. Ya., Karpov N. V., Kuzmina L. V., Ostapenko V. A., Sheveleva V.P. Information collection of the Euro-Asian Regional Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Issue No. 31. Volume II. Interdepartmental collection. scientific and scientific method. tr. / Ed. V. V. Spitsina. - M.: Moscow Zoo, 2012. - P. 170. - 570 p. ISBN 978-5-904012-37-3 PDF
Butterfly fish is a fish with an original name that lives both in marine reservoirs and in fresh waters and aquariums. Depending on its habitat, it has different colors and body shapes. Yours unusual name The fish got it because of its bright colors and large fins that resemble wings.
Description of butterfly fish species
Sea butterfly fish is a small but very bright fish that lives in the wild. In their natural environment, these fish can be found between coral reefs, where their beauty is illuminated by the rays of the sun and clear water. Butterfly fish are considered one of the most colorful species on Earth, which is how they deserve their name. By structure sea butterfly fish They are distinguished by a flattened body and a long dorsal fin.
The freshwater butterfly fish is found most often in stagnant water, is widespread on the African continent and is inferior in brightness to its marine counterparts. The freshwater butterflyfish gets its name from its wide fins that resemble the wings of a butterfly. In addition, this type of fish can fly over water. short distances. Such skills distinguish butterfly fish from other inhabitants of water bodies.
The pennant butterflyfish is also found in the wild among reefs and in deep channels. Adults lead a paired lifestyle, while young people prefer to live alone. The pennant butterflyfish has an original coloring. Her flattened tall body It is colored with white and black stripes, and the rear fin is yellow.
Aquarium butterflyfish are most often freshwater fish. Its body resembles the shape of a boat and reaches 10 cm in length. By color aquarium fish do not differ in brightness, they are usually gray, gray-green or brown in color.
The aquarium butterfly fish has the same jumping ability as its marine counterparts. This is why it is recommended to keep the aquarium closed.
Butterfly fish do not like to live with individuals of another species. Small fish can be perceived by the butterfly fish as food, and with large ones it can enter into battles for territory. Don’t introduce fish that bite other people’s fins either, since in this case there will be nothing left of the wing fins. Species that live on the bottom (for example, catfish) are suitable as neighbors for the butterfly.
Aquarium butterfly fish are demanding on the volume of the aquarium. Usually this is an 80-100 liter aquarium for several individuals. Ideally, one fish lives in a 40-liter volume. The aquarium must be tightly closed with a glass lid without slits so that the fish cannot jump out of the water and cut itself.
Butterfly fish love warm water, the temperature in the aquarium should reach +25-30 C. As for plants, fish need broad-leaved species. The water level should be low, then the fish will feel calm and spend most of their time between the thickets of plants.
The water should be changed every week by 15-20%, while ensuring good filtration of the aquarium. The soil for the butterfly fish is not of decisive importance, since it practically does not sink to the bottom.
Feeding - important process in keeping butterfly fish. In nature, it prefers to pick up insects from the surface of the water, so it does not pay attention to food at the bottom. Food that is too small is also not suitable for feeding. You can use large flake food, and also add grasshoppers, flies, and cockroaches to the diet.
In aquariums with sea water also contain pennant fish and butterflies. These species are more vibrant in color. For example, a lemon butterfly fish with a bright yellow color can live in a marine aquarium.