5 More freshwater fishies!
The Egger’s Killifish, ephemeral and splendid:
The sight of a colored-up male Egger’s killifish is enough to give anyone pause. With his crystalline eyes and scales of cherry red and aquamarine, who could not allow their jaw to fall slack at the sight of this species?
But just like the wild dreams that the Egger’s killifish’s brings to mind, it is a creatures that comes and goes, as if with the wind-
The Egger’s killifish is what is known as an annual killifish, it lives only about one year in the stagnant African pools it calls home. These pools fill at the start of the wet season, when the killifish hatch from their eggs buried in the mud, feeding with great haste on the insect larvae that happen upon their domain.
At the height of the wet season, the fish brighten like ink dropped lazily into water, the males dance and fight for females in their time, the ladies make their choices, and eggs are laid.
But after these hours in the sun, the colors of the killifish fade, the pools begin to dry, the adults begin to die off, and the eggs lay burred in the mud, with no water above them, waiting for the next rain.
The delightful Pea Puffer
Not much longer than an inch, the pea puffer (yes, a freshwater pufferfish!) has earned its place as a beloved species in the freshwater aquarium community. Known for following it’s keeper to the extents of it’s tank like a tiny, caged puppy, and filling it’s tiny belly with snails (until it looks like it has swallowed a while pea!).
In conclusion, pea puffers are smol and perfect and I love them so much.
The zebra pleco, painted diamond of freshwater aquaria:
While not particularly remarkable in it’s natural history (another small, amazonian catfish), the Zebra pleco gets it’s fame from it’s place in the aquarium trade. While lots of aquarium fish can be expensive, these fish are usually large, the zebra pleco, however, can command prices of nearly 300 USD per fish, and is only a few inches long. The value of this fish has caused overfishing, and now a ban on exportation from their native range. As of current, most zebra places in the pet trade are laboriously captive bred by specialist keepers, who value this species and keep their price high.
The gilled lungfish, hardly a fish at all?
If you squinted a little, this photo looks like an axolotl, and even with clear vision, appears very amphibian-like.
Adding to their similarity to amphibians, gilled lungfish can breathe both air and water, have four limb-like fins and can survive for months burrowed in the mud, out of water (like many frogs).
Fishes like this bring into question where we draw the line between fish and amphibian, which in some cases seems like an arbitrary boundary. Some Amphibians, like the amphiumas, seem more like classical fish than the gilled lungfish does-
but yeah
Taxonomy is harddddddddddd.
The splash tetra, pushing the boundary yet again:
As if the gilled lungfish didn’t unsettle out idea of “fish” enough, the splash tetra comes in with a new peculiarity-
breeding out of water.
As part of his courtship of a female, the Male splash tetra searches around for a leaf that hangs low over the water. Once he has found a good one, he jumps around to attract a female to his selected site. If his lady finds the leaf suitable, she jumps up, clings to it, and deposits her eggs. The male then jumps up to fertilize the clutch.
After this, it’s up to the male to keep the eggs from drying out. He will guard the site, and splash water on his eggs (where the splash tetra gets it’s name!) using his broad tail-fin until they hatch.
once the eggs hatch, the baby fish fall from the leaf, into the water, and begin their lives as tiny splash tetras.
breeding outside of water like this was once thought to be a trait unique to amphibians, but like many species, the splash tetra likes to break the rules.