Fish Families
Family Identification
Acipenseridae / Sturgeon Family:
Acipenseridae / Sturgeon Family:
1. Rows of bony scales
2. Ventral Mouth, with barbels
3. Lake Sturgeon in the Great Lakes
4. Flesh is tasty!
Amiidae / Bowfin Family:
Amia calva
Amiidae / Bowfin Family:
1. Long dorsal fin across most of the back
2. Body covered with scales
3. Long bony plate under the lower jaw
4. Only one species exists “living fossil”
Anguillidae / Freshwater Eel Family
Anguillidae / Freshwater Eel Family
1. The American Eel is distinguished by its shape
2. Long dorsal, caudal and anal fins3. Toothed jaws, and the single gill
opening. • Lampreys have a similar shape and long dorsal fins but have
no jaws (teeth are in a sucking disc) and there are 7 gill openings – Lamprey NOT included with this group
4. Found in N. Atlantic and Great Lakes Region
Atherinidae / Silverside Family
Antherinidae / Silverside Family
1. Brook silversides are known for leaping out of the water over and over again-especially on moonlit nights.
2. Brook silversides are small, almost see-through fish that grow to about 3” long
Catostomidae / Sucker Family
Catostomidae / Sucker Family
1. Single soft rayed dorsal fin
2. Toothless jaws, teeth in throat only
3. Cycloid scales 4. Fleshy, protruding lips
Centrarchidae / Sunfish Family
Centrarchidae / Sunfish Family
Centrarchidae / Sunfish Family
• Deep-bodied and compressed laterally• Fins often have both soft rays and stiff spines • Sunfish generally thrive in warm water
– All sunfish are nest builders, and their saucer-shaped nests can be frequently observed along the shoreline of ponds, lakes and streams in late spring.
– An active, nest-guarding male can often be observed swimming within the nest vicinity, guarding both eggs and newly-hatched young. A few days after hatching, the young emerge from the nest, at which time the guarding parent leaves them to care for themselves.
• All sunfish are carnivorous.
Cottidae – Sculpin Family
Cottidae – Sculpin Family
• Large head• Fanlike pectoral fins• No spines in anal fin. • This is a very large family with about 300
species. • Most species are found in Arctic or temperate
waters and are bottom dwellers. • They typically occur in shallow or inter-tidal
zones, though some species occur in deep ocean and others in fresh water.
Cyprinidae – Minnow Family
Cyprinidae – Minnow Family
• No jaw teeth, ONE dorsal fin
• 1-3 rows of pharyngeal teeth
• Barbels sometimes present.
• This huge family lives almost exclusively in freshwater, though some of its members stray into brackish water.
• There are more than two thousand species in this family
Esocidae – Pike Family
Esocidae – Pike Family
1. Members of the pike family have a long, streamlined profile that is found among predators in many fish families throughout the world.
2. Their fins are soft rayed, lacking the stiff spines found in other familiar fishes, such as sunfish and yellow perch.
3. Median fins include the dorsal and anal fins, located opposite each other about three-quarters of the way back towards the tail.
4. The pelvic fins are located midway on the fish's belly.5. The pectoral fins are positioned closer to the head.
Esocidae – Pike Family
6. These ambush predators are known for their voracious appetites, feeding on prey fish
7. Because they are such aggressive predators, they are also popular fish for anglers to catch
Esocidae – Pike Family
Gasterosteidae / Stickleback Family:
Gasterosteidae / Stickleback Family:
1. Sticklebacks are small fish
2. They have 2,3 or more strong spines on the back in front of the dorsal fin
1. (spines that they can erect or depress at will)
3. Some of them have bony plates in the scaleless skin, but others do not.
Gasterosteidae / Stickleback Family:
4. Found in marine (salt), brackish (mixed) & freshwater habitats in the northern hemisphere
5. Spawning almost always takes place in freshwater
6. Eggs usually develop in a nest built & guarded by the male.
Ictaluridae
Ictaluridae / N. American Catfish Family:
1. Catfish do not have scales, and are aged by making cross sections of the pectoral spines to read growth rings.
2. The fin spines can be very toxic because of poisonous cell secretions on the spine but are not fatal to humans.
a) Wounds can be painful and extremely swollen for days although in most cases the wasp-like sensation fades after an hour and is gone in about 4-5 hours.
3. Madtoms are named for their hyperactive, darting and dashing behavior.
4. Bullhead catfishes are hardy and very tolerant of domestic pollution.
a) FYI:Larger catfishes, such as the Channel Catfish, are commercially important in the U.S.A. and are cultured in ponds. Catfish restaurant dinners are a specialty in the southern U.S.A. and catfish figure prominently in fish and chips. These fishes are also sought after by anglers, being strong fighters and good eating.
MAD TOM
Ictaluridae
5. All species construct nests and protect their young, although some smaller species take advantage of pollution by nesting in beer cans
6. The barbels and skin are taste and touch sensitive and used to detect food.
a) This is particularly useful in muddy water and at night. Many of these catfishes are nocturnal. "Taste" can also be used in breeding behavior and in schooling . Most catfish also have excellent hearing!
Lepisosteidae
Lepisosteidae / Gar Family:
1. Gars are found in freshwaters of North America sometimes in brackish water & rarely the sea.
2. Gars have elongate jaws ("gar" is Old English for spear) filled with needle-like teeth.
3. The ganoid scales are heavy, peg and groove hinged, non-overlapping, rhombic and plate-like, forming an effective armor.
4. Dorsal and anal fins are near the tail.
Lepisosteidae
Lepisosteidae - FYI
1. Gar are considered a pest because they eat other fishes and are often killed by fish.
2. They have been pursued by anglers who specialize in trying to catch this species with its narrow bony mouth.
3. They are edible, better tasting when smoked, although they are hard to clean because of the bony armor.
4. The flesh must be carefully cleaned of the eggs before eating as these are thought to be poisonous although there is some dispute about this
Percidae / Perch Family
1. Perches have 2 dorsal fins, the first spiny & the second soft rayed, which are usually separate or only slightly joined.
2. The anal fin has only 1-2 spines (rather than 3 as in related families).
3. The pelvic fins are under the pectorals. Scales are ctenoid.
Logperch
Walleye
Percidae
4. Teeth may be long and sharp or small and in bands. 5. The operculum has a sharp spine. 6. There are 2 kinds of perches –
a) large species with compressed bodies and a swim-bladder, b) small species with depressed bodies and reduced or absent
swim-bladders.
7. In North America the larger species include the Yellow Perch, Sauger and Walleye
8. The smaller species are the darters. a) Darters are sensitive to environmental change and are useful
indicators of the health of aquatic ecosystems
Walleye
Percidae
Percopsideae
Percopsideae / Troutperch Family:
1. The Trout-perch Family contains only 2 species in North American freshwaters
2. The name derives from their anatomy, which contains characters of both the trout or salmon-like fishes and the perch-like fishes
3. They include an adipose fin, weakly ctenoid scales, a scale-less head
Petromyzontidae
Petromyzontidae / Lamprey Family:
1. Lampreys are jawless fishes
2. Lacking bone in the skeleton
3. 7 pairs of pore-like gill openings
4. The eel-like body has no pectoral or pelvic fins. There are 1 or 2 dorsal fins and a caudal fin.
5. The mouth is a circular armed with rows of sharp teeth
Petromyzontidae
6. There are also teeth on the tongue. The one nostril opening is not connected to the mouth.
7. There is a light-sensitive pineal organ or "third eye" behind the nostril.
8. The skin is covered in mucus which is poisonous to fishes and humans.
9. Lampreys are edible if the mucus is cleaned off.
Petromyzontidae
Polyodontiae / Paddlefish Family:
Polyodontiae
• Large, elongate, stout body
• Ventral mouth
• Long, flattened, paddle-like snout
• Large head · Small eyes · No teeth
• Two barbels under the snout near the mouth
Polyodontiae
• Relative of the sturgeon
• The huge snout covered with sensitive taste buds which may help locate plankton.
• A filter-feeder, the paddle fish can grow up to 200 pounds.
• Dams have caused a decrease in population in the United States.
Salmonidae / Salmon & Trout Family:
1.Have an adipose fin
2.Scales are cycloid
3.There are no fin spines
4.The lateral line is obvious , dorsal fin at mid-body
5.Breeding tubercles may in some species.
6.These fishes are tetraploids.
Salmonidae
• Many are anadromous, spending part of their life at sea, but returning to freshwater where all species spawn in a gravel bed in rivers or stream
• Most die after spawning.
Vocabulary
• Ganoid:– rhomboid in shape
• Bowfin, paddlefishes, gars and sturgeons
• Placoid – They do not increase
in size as the fish grows, instead new scales are added.
– Often referred to as denticles.
• sharks and rays
Cycloid & Ctenoid Scales
• Found in the most bony fishes
• Overlapping scales • Gives the fish greater
flexibility than in those species with placoid or ganoid scales
Cycloid
Ctenoid
Placoid Scales
Ganoid ScalesCtenoid Scales
Cycloid Scales
Determining Age in Fish
• As cycloid and ctenoid scales grow, growth rings called circuli form
• Looks like tree rings • During the cooler months
of the year the scale and otoliths (inner ear bone) grows more slowly and the rings are closer together leaving a band called an annulus.
• By counting the annuli it is possible estimate the age of the fish.
A few more icthovocabulary
• Tetraploid: Having 4 sets of chromosomes in the nucleus
• Anadromous: Fishes that spend all or part of their adult life in salt water and return to freshwater streams and rivers to spawn.
• Catadromous: Fish that journey from freshwater to the depths of the ocean to spawn
Bio II – Fish / Macroinvertebrate
Test
#1 What Fish is this#2 What Family
#3 What Family
#4 What is the fish name (common name)
#5 What Family
#6 What Family
#7 Fish (common) name#8 Family name
Note: Fish is large – not found in
streams – found in lakes
Same fish – different pictures
#9 Fish Name (Same one that Becca brought in)
#10 Family Name
What fish – What family – jk RELAX – You can do this says Gill (Moorish Idol)
#11 - What Family?
12 1413
15 (bony plate)
16 (tail fin or ___ fin)
18
17
#19
A person that studies fish is called a/an ___.
#20
#21 – What Family