Tarpon can only be fished recreationally in Florida. The majority of recreational anglers practice catch and release since the fish is not considered to be of any food value. However, anglers can possess them for trophy purposes at the cost of $50.00 per tag, per fish. Without this tag, possession is illegal. Tarpon are considered to be one the best saltwater game fish. Tarpon fishing brings excitement and joy to fishermen as they're known to give a good fight and can perform amazing leaps.
While some species of sharks are highly migratory, studies suggest that horn sharks have an extremely small home range of about 11,000 square feet. One was found in the exact spot where it had once been caught, tagged and released 11 years earlier, and the farthest any tagged horn shark has traveled is 10 miles. The scientific name heterodontus means "different teeth," referring to the fact that horn sharks have some teeth that are sharp and some that are used for crushing invertebrates.
Helostoma temminckii are popularly known as kissing fish, as they are sometimes found to lock their lips with other members of the species. You may also find them kissing other types of fish, plants, and objects in the tank, while feeding or bullying. Though the lip-locking act of these fish may appear as kissing, it is certainly not a display of love and affection, as in case of humans. It has been suggested that their lip-locking is a sign of fight for dominance. It usually happens in young males, who want to defend their territory or feeding areas. Such aggressive behavior is also seen during breeding season, to attract females.
The snub-nose eel, Simenchelys parasitica, is a small deep-sea eel, about 20 to 35 centimetres long. It has attracted note by being found a number of times burrowed into the body cavity of larger fishes with perhaps the most renowned case being two juveniles that were found nested inside the heart of a mako shark. This lead to the description of S. parasitica as an endoparasite (hence the species name). However, acceptance of this tag has been far from universal. The snub-nosed eel has been caught free-living more regularly than it has been found in other fish.
The waterwheel is a submerged aquatic plant closely related to sundews and Venus fly traps. Its leaves are in whorls and the leaf tips are fitted with scoop-like traps. It is a carnivorous plant that catches animal prey through an active trap mechanism - traps snap shut when triggered by prey. Traps number up to 200 per plant and researchers estimate that up to 80% of the traps may contain prey at any given time. These traps catch untold numbers of insects and other animals, giving scientists great concern about waterwheel's effect on food webs and rare invertebrate species. It is native to Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Japan, Korea. It is listed as "Endangered' on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In its native range, waterwheel has declined to only 50 confirmed extant locations today.
Like other fish, sharks "breathe" through their gills, which are respiratory organs akin to our lungs. As water passes over the gill's membranes, tiny blood vessels extract oxygen from the water. Carbon dioxide waste also passes from the shark's blood and out of its body through the gill tissue. Other sharks use ram ventilation; that is, they ventilate their gills by swimming very fast with their mouths open. Some sharks, such as the tiger shark, can switch between buccal pumping and ram ventilation depending on quickly they're swimming. Some sharks, particularly those that are not active swimmers, such as nurse and bullhead sharks, breathe using buccal pumping. This method gets its name from the buccal (mouth) muscles that actively draw water into the mouth and over the gills, allowing the sharks to respire while remaining still
Most wild seahorses are monogamous and some species mate for life. Searching for mates can be difficult and risky since seahorses are poor swimmers, found in low densities and rely on camouflage to hide from predators. By remaining faithful to one partner, the pairs have more time to undergo more pregnancies during a single mating season and, ultimately, have greater reproductive success. The pair-bonds of monogamous seahorses are reinforced by daily greetings.
Lizardfish, any of about 57 species of marine fish of the family Synodontidae, found primarily in the tropics. Lizardfish are elongated with rounded bodies and scaly heads. They grow to a maximum length of about 50 centimetres (20 inches) and are characteristically mottled or blotched to blend with their surroundings. The lizardfish are known as 'benthic' creatures. Benthic is just a fancy word for entities that live in the sandy, shallow bottom water of the ocean. The true lizardfish or those of the Synodus origin live under the coastal waters throughout the world.
Scallops have up to 200 eyes, and each of them uses a mirror instead of a lens to focus light. Biologists have known since the 1960s that these concave mirrors are made from crystals of guanine, a highly reflective material that can be seen in everything from fish scales to chameleon skin. Although these crystals usually form into bulky prisms, the crystals in the scallop's eye are perfect squares that—like a telescope mirror—create a smooth surface that minimizes optical distortions. Now, scientists have shown just how these mirrors work. Using computer simulations, they found that when light comes in straight, it hits the upper of the scallop's two retinas. But when light comes in at an angle, it hits the lower retina, enhancing the scallop's peripheral vision in dim light, they report today in Science. They also hypothesize just how these creatures make sense of images from 200 different eyes at once: a process in the scallop's "brain" that combines them all into a single, cohesive image.
Catfish have no scales; their bodies are often naked. In some species, the mucus-covered skin is used in cutaneous respiration, where the fish breathes through its skin. In some catfish, the skin is covered in bony plates called scutes; some form of body armor has evolved a number of times within the order. In loricarioids and in the Asian genus Sisor, the armor is primarily made up of one or more rows of free dermal plates. Similar plates are found in large specimens of Lithodoras. These plates may be supported by vertebral processes, as in scoloplacids and in Sisor, but the processes never fuse to the plates or form any external armor.