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Orthopristis chrysoptera, the pigfish, hogfish, piggy perch, redmouth grunt or sailor's choice, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a grunt belonging to the family Haemulidae. It is found in the western Atlantic Ocean. This name derives from the grunting or chattering noise these fish make by rubbing their pharyngeal teeth together.
With over 300 known species, there are more species of minnows native to North America's fresh waters than any other fish. [2] Minnows can be hard to distinguish because many look alike. [ 3 ] All minnows have one dorsal fin , ventral fins near the anus , a lateral line system (in most species), and smooth, round cycloid scales. [ 4 ]
The pharyngeal jaws, so-called because they are positioned within the pharynx, are used to further process the food and move it from the mouth to the stomach. [2] [3] Cartilaginous fishes, such as sharks and rays, have one set of oral jaws made mainly of cartilage. They do not have pharyngeal jaws.
Moray eels are the only known animals that use pharyngeal jaws to actively capture and restrain prey in this way. [7] [8] [9] Moray eel jaw anatomy. In addition to the presence of pharyngeal jaws, morays' mouth openings extend far back into the head, compared to fish which feed using suction.
Most fish species with pharyngeal teeth do not have extendable pharyngeal jaws. A particularly notable exception is the highly mobile pharyngeal jaw of the moray eels.These are possibly a response to their inability to swallow as other fishes do by creating a negative pressure in the mouth, perhaps induced by their restricted environmental niche (burrows) or in the air in the intertidal zone. [10]
The following is a list of common fish species known to occur in the lakes and rivers of Canada.
Hemiramphidae is a family of fishes that are commonly called halfbeaks, spipe fish or spipefish. They are a geographically widespread and numerically abundant family of epipelagic fish inhabiting warm waters around the world. The halfbeaks are named for their distinctive jaws, in which the lower jaws are significantly longer than the upper jaws.
Instead, they have convergent structures called pharyngeal teeth in the throat. While other groups of fish, such as cichlids, also possess pharyngeal teeth, the cypriniformes' teeth grind against a chewing pad on the base of the skull, rather than an upper pharyngeal jaw. [5] A true loach - the spined loach, Cobitis taenia