Apeltes facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Fourspine stickleback |
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| A female A. quadracus carrying eggs | |
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Apeltes
DeKay, 1842
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A. quadracus
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| Apeltes quadracus (Mitchill, 1815)
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The fourspine stickleback (scientific name: Apeltes quadracus) is a small fish also known as the bloody stickleback. It belongs to a group of fish called sticklebacks. This fish lives in different types of water, including freshwater, brackish water (a mix of fresh and salt water), and near the bottom of the ocean. You can find it in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, from Newfoundland all the way down to South Carolina.
What Does It Look Like?
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The fourspine stickleback is the smallest fish in the stickleback family. It usually has four or five sharp spines on its back, but sometimes it can have up to seven. Its body is long and shaped like a torpedo. It has brown or olive-green spots, but its belly is shiny silver-white.
Male fourspine sticklebacks are often darker than females. They also have red spines near their belly fins. The first three back spines are close together and point outwards. The fourth spine is straight and connected to the main back fin. This fish does not have scales on its body. Fourspine sticklebacks usually grow to be about 4 centimeters (about 1.5 inches) long. Some can grow a bit bigger, up to 5 or 6 centimeters.
Where Does It Live?
You can find the fourspine stickleback along the freshwater coasts from Newfoundland and Quebec in Canada, south to North Carolina in the United States. They like to live close to the shore in areas with lots of plants underwater.
This fish has also been introduced to some freshwater places where it didn't originally live. These places include parts of Pennsylvania, Alabama, New Jersey, and even Lake Superior.
How Does It Live?
Fourspine sticklebacks mostly live alone. They spend most of their time near the bottom of lakes or other bodies of water. Their diet mainly consists of tiny creatures without backbones, called invertebrates, and very small organisms called plankton.
Most fourspine sticklebacks start to breed when they are one year old. Some might live long enough to breed again when they are two years old. Their breeding season is from April to late July. They often breed in the same places and at the same time as other stickleback species. These include the threespine, ninespine, and blackspotted sticklebacks.
During breeding season, the male stickleback sets up his own territory. He builds nests using plants, either on the bottom of the water or on underwater structures. He can even build several nests stacked on top of each other! Once he attracts a female and she lays her eggs in his nest, he fertilizes them. The male then guards the nest until the eggs hatch. A female stickleback can lay several groups of eggs in one year.
See also
In Spanish: Espinoso de cuatro espinas para niños
