The Tiger Reef Eel grows up to 140 cm in length. Its serpentine shaped body has a light yellow brown background color covered with a series of irregular dark brown blotches on the sides and top. The head is white and covered with smaller brown dots. Given that Tigers have stripes on them it is hard to understand how this eel was named tigrina. They dorsal fin is only visible towards the rear of the body. Tiger Reef Eel are usually nocturnal feeders and spend the days in crevices in the rocks. Occasionally they will be seen with their heads sticking out the crevices during the day. Even at night they are highly reclusive and disappear into a crevice at the first sight of a light. It is rare to see them out in the open during the day.
The male cuckoo wrasse builds a nest in rocky areas using mainly algae and seaweed during the breeding season. They look for rocks and clean them with their sharp teeth and then tie up the rock with algae and seaweed to give it a dish-like structure. Like many other fishes, the cuckoo wrasse is oviparous in nature. A female cuckoo wrasse can lay about 1000 eggs each season and this huge clutch size helps the population of marine fish to be stable. Cuckoo wrasse eggs are often targeted by various marine animals. The male cuckoo wrasse takes up the responsibility of guarding the nest after fertilizing the eggs.
The Ghol fish is known for its medicinal value and pharmaceutical companies are known to use the fish to make dissolvable stitches. It is scientifically known as Protonibea diacanthus and is a type of blackspotted croaker fish with huge demand in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Its fins are said to have medicinal value as well. They are used in wine production in Sigapore. Ghol fish also contain many vitamins, minerals, proteins, that help in maintaining eyesight.
Zebra sharks are gentle fish that hang around coral reefs in tropical oceans. They spend their days sleeping and their evenings leisurely hunting around the sea floor and eating. Because of climate change and human activity, zebra shark numbers are in free fall. A worldwide effort is underway to save them, and there are small things we can all do to support their survival.
The tasseled wobbegong (Eucrossorhinus dasypogo) is a type of carpet shark from the kingdom Animalia, class Chondrichthyes, order Orectolobiformes, family Orectolobidae, genus Eucrossorhinus. This species of carpet shark is the only type in its genus. Tasseled wobbegongs are ambush predators who prey on schools of fishes and can attack humans unprovoked.
The Ide, also known as an Orfe, is a predominantly silver-white fish. It has a dark-colored back from which its name is derived from. As it grows older, the Ide eventually has some tinges of gold covering its body. Its fins are light grey although its caudal, pectoral, and anal fin have a tinge of rose in them. They have a long, elongated body with a square-edged tail though there's a slight indention that makes it somewhat appear like a letter "v". Someone illegally imported Ides into New Zealand before, they didn't last long however. Ides became a popular ornamental fish in Europe, particularly in Great Britain, now they're more widespread in England and Wales. They originally came from France which went to Germany and finally, into the Netherlands.
The spiny butterfly ray, also known as the giant butterfly ray is a large, broad ray that can measure to over 6.7 ft. crosswise, with a lozenge-like shaped pectoral fin disk, as they are wider than they are long. They have concave front margins with rounded corners. They have short and blunt snouts, high cone-shaped teeth with around 98-138 rows on their upper jaw and 78-110 rows on their lower jaws. Within both their jaws, there are about 10-12 functional rows of teeth, with a dental band using 70% of the width of the jaw each. They have a short and slender tail, about a fourth of the width of the fin disk, with upper and lower fin folds.
Muskie' or 'musky' is a short name used for the muskellunge fish and most muskellunge fish are found in the natural lakes of northern parts of America. Muskellunge' is a word from the Indigenous language Ojibwe in North America. It is a derivation of the Ojibwe word is 'maashkinoozhe', which translates to 'great fish'.
Mandarin fish (Pterosynchiropus splendidus) are also known by several other common names, including the Mandarin Dragonet, Mandarin Goby, Green Mandarin fish, Striped Mandarin fish and the Psychedelic fish. This species is best known for its ritual reproduction mating "dance" which only occurs during sunset hours. Females will group together at the reef and seek a male mate. The males then begin to court the females, the bigger and stronger males are more likely to be chosen. Males also can reproduce with multiple females in a night.
The Bigmouth Sleeper, Gobiomorus dormitor, is a member of the Sleeper or Eleotridae Family, and is known in Mexico as guavina bocona. Globally, there are four species in the genus Gobiomorus, of which two are found in Mexican waters, one in the freshwater drainage systems of the Atlantic and one in the freshwater drainage system of the Pacific Ocean. It has an elongate, cylindrical body and a large, broad head. The dorsal profile is gently arched to the dorsal fins and then slopes down to the caudal peduncle. The mouth is large and terminal with a projecting lower jaw, and this species has large lips and a pointed snout with a projecting lower jaw. All fins are spotted. The bigmouth sleeper is a brackish and freshwater species that inhabits creeks, canals, ponds and lakes. It can often be found inland, but also in coastal areas of fresh and brackish water.