Ad
related to: banded knifefish name chart template fillable sheets 1 5
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The banded knifefish (Gymnotus carapo) is a species of gymniform knifefish native to a wide range of freshwater habitats in South America. [1] It is the most widespread species of Gymnotus, [1] but it has frequently been confused with several relatives, including some found outside its range like the Central America G. maculosus.
[5] [9] Like other Neotropical knifefish, they often lose their tail due to attacks by predators or aggressive encounters with conspecifics, but they are able to regenerate it. [14] The largest Gymnotus are up to 100 cm (3.3 ft) in total length. [5] [9] Most species reach less than one-third that size and the smallest only around 10 cm (4 in) long.
Despite the name, the electric eel is a type of knifefish. The Gymnotiformes / dʒ ɪ m ˈ n ɒ t ɪ f ɔːr m iː z / are an order of teleost bony fishes commonly known as Neotropical knifefish or South American knifefish. They have long bodies and swim using undulations of their elongated anal fin.
Common names of fish can refer to a single species; to an entire group of species, such as a genus or family; or to multiple unrelated species or groups. Ambiguous common names are accompanied by their possible meanings. Scientific names for individual species and higher taxa are included in parentheses.
Knifefish may refer to several knife-shaped fishes: The Neotropical or weakly electric knifefishes, order Gymnotiformes, containing five families: Family Gymnotidae (banded knifefishes and the electric eel) Family Rhamphichthyidae (sand knifefishes) Family Hypopomidae (bluntnose knifefishes) Family Sternopygidae (glass and rat-tail knifefishes)
When originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766, he used the name Gymnotus electricus, placing it in the same genus as Gymnotus carapo (banded knifefish) which he had described several years earlier. It was only about a century later, in 1864, that the electric eel was moved to its own genus Electrophorus by Theodore Gill. [5]
Like the other gymnotiforms, gymnotids have classic knifefish bodies. The body is long and eel-like, the dorsal fin and pelvic fins are absent, and the anal fin is extremely long and used for movement.
Gymnotus choco, commonly known as the cuchillo (Spanish for "knife"), is an electric knifefish. [1] G. choco is distinguished from its cogenerate species group by a color pattern possessing pale yellow bands oriented obliquely, wherein the interband margins are wavy or even irregular; one to three Y-shaped dark bands occur on its body's posterior section; and its pale bands do not extend above ...