"LIVING FOSSILS"
Tetradontiformes
Scorpaeniformes
Gasterosteiformes
Flashlight fish
Siluriformes
Gobiesociformes
Lophiiformes
Rainbow Trout
Characiformes
Perciformes
CYPRINIDAE
Lizardfish
Anguilliformes
Mudskipper
Red Rainbow Fish
Rainbow Fish
Fringed Jawfish
Rock Cod
Archerfish
Aquarium Flounder
Mbuna
Mono
Cardinal Fish
Loaches
Siamese Tiger Fish
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| Bony fishes represent an assembly of at least 23,000
described species, by far the most successful vertebrates. They range in
size from tiny 1 cm/ 1/2-inch Philippine gobies to giant ocean sunfishes
and halibut. In morphological variety, fishes are rivaled--perhaps--only
by insects. There are flat fishes with both eyes on one side of their
heads (Picasso must have loved these!), and fishes with four eyes; fishes
that shoot insects with a squirt gun and fishes that inflate into bulbous
pincushions; fishes that walk miles overland in search of new ponds and
species that glide through the air. Seahorses, goldfishes, flounders,
mudskippers, lungfishes, electric eels... they are all bony fishes.
Bony fishes are divided into several groups, but all share certain
features. They have a simple two-chambered heart, a single pair of gill
slits, paired fins supported by bony or cartilaginous rods, and a skeleton
made of bone. They inhabit almost all bodies of water, from ponds to
streams, rivers and oceans, but are absent from salt lakes. Some require
the heat of hot-springs water, while others thrive in water that is rarely
above freezing.
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