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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 140 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Fish
bubble nests . Bettas build bubble nests to house the females' eggs after spawning.
Anabantidae. Bettas belong to the family Anabantidae which includes other air-breathing fish such as Gouramis.
Whale Shark. A whale shark can exceed 10 tons in weight.
| Which fish often stalks other fish from beneath logs and other protected areas? | North American Fish
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Pike. The spoon-shaped lures that fishermen use to attract the larger pikes are believed to move and glitter like the living prey.
| These fish are blind and have an enhanced ability to detect vibration and odor? | North American Fish
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Cavefishes. Cavefishes are rarely seen in the wild, but visitors can see them in tanks at Kentucky's Mammoth Cave.
| Members of this fish family locate food by probing the bottom with sensitive, whiskerlike barbels? | North American Fish
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Catfishes. Catfish are important to sport and commercial fishermen.
| Most of this species of fish are hermaphroditic, having both male and female reproductive organs? | North American Fish
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Sea Basses. In some, a mature individual can produce eggs and sperm at the same time.
| Which fish spends most of its life in the ocean, but returns to freshwater to spawn? | North American Fish
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Salmon. Salmon are common and widespread in Canada and the northern United States.
Remoras. A remora clings tightly to its host with the suction disk atop its head.
yes . There are a mammal and a fish called a dolphin.
Chinook. Source: Reader's Digest's North American Wildlife.
| What fish do North American fisherman target the most? | Fun Fish Quiz
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Black Bass. According to the magazine 'BassMasters', the Black Bass is what 65 percent of fisherman fish for.
Yes. Fish need oxygen or else they will asphyxiate.
| What fish is not a game fish, but is often caught by stream trout fishermen? | Fun Fish Quiz
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Sucker. The sucker can get up to 25 inches long.
| Following the re-discovery of this strange fish in 1938, JLB Smith (of the JLB Smith Institute) confirmed its identity as a Coelacanth and subsequently named the genus and species Latimeria chalumnae after Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and the place of its capture.
What was Miss Courtenay-Latimer's occupation?
| The Coelacanth aka 'The Living Fossil Fish'
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museum curator. Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer worked as a curator at the East London museum in South Africa, a most unusual position to be held by a woman, especially a teenager. She often went looking for suitable specimens and spotted the unusual fish, which had been trawled near the mouth of the River Chalumna, on Captain Goosen's boat, the Nerine. Realising the importance of saving the specimen for scientific research, she preserved it as best she could at the museum until it could be formally identified.
ichthyology. Entomology is the study of insects, ornithology is the study of birds and herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians.
South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. The Department of Ichthyology at Rhodes University was renamed The JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology after Smith's death in 1968. It was decided to change it once again in 2001 to the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity to reflect the work being done not only in the field of fishes, but also marine conservation in general.
True. This was small by comparison to other Coelacanths which have since been caught. Some have been known to grow over 6 feet in length and weigh in excess of 200 pounds. The female is generally much larger than the male, but gender is very difficult to identify accurately purely by external observation.
8. Coelacanths have 2 dorsal, 2 pectoral, 2 pelvic, 1 anal and 1 caudal fin. The trilobite tail fin is unknown in any other living fish, but the paired pectoral and pelvic fins are extremely unusual too.
False. In fact Antarctica is the only continent where these fossils haven't been found. The reason that Coelacanths were once believed to be extinct in the wild is because all known fossil remains are thought to predate the Cretaceous period.
up to 3 years. Studies have yet to determine the exact length of gestation, but estimates of up to 3 years have been speculated. It is also thought that they might not even reach sexual maturity and reproductive capability until they are at least 10 years old, which is one of the reasons why there is such concern over their future.
| Coelacanth eggs are fertilised internally, and hatch inside the parent fish. The pups are born alive, some still attached to the yolk sac which provided nourishment throughout the embryonic growing phase inside their mother.
What is the name of the alternative reproductive method whereby the eggs are expelled and hatch outside the body?
| The Coelacanth aka 'The Living Fossil Fish'
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oviparous. Both ovoviviparous and viviparous reproduction methods result in the parent giving birth to live young.
| It was once thought that unborn Coelacanth pups ate their siblings and other eggs while still in the uterus before birth, but this has since been disproven.
Cannibalistic behaviour of this sort is known as oophagy. True or False?
| The Coelacanth aka 'The Living Fossil Fish'
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True. More than twenty fully formed pups have been found inside one Coelacanth. Examination has revealed that no muscle fibre or flesh of any sort had been taken in as a food substance in the unborn pups, thus dispelling this belief.
an orange. Each egg weighs approximately 320g and looks uncannily like a haggis.
1%. The brain is remarkably small in comparison to other fish of similar size. Research on unborn, juvenile pups has shown that their brains occupy almost all of the cranial cavity.
old fourlegs. JLB Smith wrote a book entitled 'Old Fourlegs - The Story of the Coelacanth' about his fascination for this fish. Once the Coelacanth had been studied it was found that the pelvic and pectoral fins of the Coelacanth have an internal skeleton. It was generally thought that this fish had once used those tough, paddle-like fins to walk along the seabed out onto dry land. It was even suggested that this fish could have been a direct ancestor of man, but neither of these statements were ever proven and it is now widely accepted that this was not the case.
rostral. The rostral organ is a gel-filled gland and is thought to work in a similar manner to the ampullae of Lorenzini pores in sharks by picking up electrical charges emitted by other marine creatures.
False. The metabolic rate of these fish is one of the lowest known for any animal. Much of their day is spent resting in caves in small groups at depths of between 100m - 700m. They don't rest on the sea floor as originally thought, but use a gentle sculling action to remain hovering in the water. They go off, generally alone, on feeding forays at night.
colour. Coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae is metallic blue in colour, whereas Coelacanth Latimeria menadoensis is brown. Both have lighter, random blotches which has been a useful method of identifying individuals as part of ongoing conservation studies.
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