Boarfish facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Boarfish |
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The boarfish, also known as Capros aper or the Zulu fish, is a fascinating type of ray-finned fish that lives in the ocean. It belongs to a special family of fish called Caproidae. The boarfish is the only species in its own unique group called Capros. You can find these interesting fish in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
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What is a Boarfish?
The boarfish has a very unique look! It has an oval-shaped body that is quite flat from side to side. Its body is deeper than its head is long. The top of its head curves inward, and it has a snout shaped like a cone.
Boarfish Features
The boarfish has large eyes, about the same size as its snout. Its mouth is big and can stick out like a short tube. This helps it grab food. Near its mouth, it has two spiny plates. Its jaws have several rows of tiny teeth, and it also has small teeth on other bones in its mouth. The bones on its head feel rough and have small spines.
Fins and Scales
The boarfish has several fins:
- Its dorsal fin (on its back) has 9 or 10 strong, grooved spines and 23 to 25 soft rays.
- The anal fin (on its belly) has 3 short, thick spines and 22 to 24 soft rays.
- Its pectoral fins (on its sides) are short and rounded.
- The pelvic fins (underneath) have one strong spine and five thick soft rays.
All the spines and rays on its paired fins have tiny spinelets. The boarfish is covered in small scales that feel rough to the touch. It also has a lateral line with 20 special scales that help it sense movement in the water.
Boarfish Colors
The boarfish is usually a shiny silver-gold color. The spiny part of its dorsal fin is black with a wide red edge. The rest of its dorsal fin, anal fin, and tail fin are black with yellowish edges. Its pelvic fins are red. Boarfish found in deeper water, beyond 200 meters (about 650 feet), are often red, sometimes with yellow stripes.
How Big Do They Get?
While some boarfish can grow up to 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) long, they are usually around 13 centimeters (about 5 inches) long.
Where Do Boarfish Live?
Boarfish are found across a wide area in the Eastern Atlantic. This includes places like western Norway, Skagerrak, Shetland, and western Scotland, all the way down to Senegal. They also live in the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the western parts.
Boarfish Habitat
These fish live at depths between 40 and 600 meters (about 130 to 1,970 feet). In some areas, like the eastern Aegean Sea, they can be found even deeper, from 288 to 700 meters (about 945 to 2,300 feet). Boarfish prefer areas with coral, rocks, and sand. They are most common along the edge of the continental shelf, which is where the land slopes into the deep ocean.
Boarfish Life and Habits
The boarfish is a carnivorous fish, meaning it eats other animals. Its main diet includes small crustaceans (like tiny shrimp), polychaetes (a type of worm), molluscs (like snails), and hydrozoans (small sea creatures).
Reproduction and Growth
Boarfish lay a lot of eggs, which float in the water. They don't take care of their young after the eggs hatch. Even though they produce many offspring, boarfish live a long time and take a while to become old enough to reproduce. Spawning, or laying eggs, happens between April and August in the Aegean Sea. In other parts of the Mediterranean, it can be from March to August, and in the northeastern Atlantic, it's from April to September.
In the Aegean, both male and female boarfish can reproduce when they are about 6.69 centimeters (about 2.6 inches) long. Females might mature a bit earlier than males. In the Mediterranean, they are ready to reproduce at 2 years old and 8.5 centimeters (about 3.3 inches). In the Atlantic, it's around 3.4 years old and 9.7 centimeters (about 3.8 inches).
Social Life and Predators
Boarfish are social fish and often gather in large groups called schools. Even though they have tough, spiny bodies, many other animals like to eat them. These predators include:
- Tope sharks (Galeorhinus galeus)
- Thornback rays (Raja clavata)
- Conger eels (Conger conger)
- Bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus)
- Blackspot seabream (Pagellus bogaraveo)
Birds also hunt boarfish, such as Cory's shearwater (Calonectris diomedea), common tern (Sterna hirundo), and the yellow-legged gull (Larus cachinnans).
Boarfish and Fishing
In recent years, more and more boarfish have been caught by fishermen in the northeastern Atlantic. For example, in the Bay of Biscay, the number of boarfish caught in fishing nets increased a lot between the 1970s and 2000s. This increase might be partly because the ocean water is getting warmer.
Most of the boarfish caught are processed into fish meal, which is used as animal feed. Because boarfish live a long time and take a while to mature, they are more easily overfished than other small schooling fish like Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) or European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus). This means it's important to manage fishing carefully to protect boarfish populations.
Taxonomy: How Boarfish Got Their Name
The boarfish was first officially described in 1758 by a famous scientist named Carl Linnaeus. He called it Zeus aper. Later, in 1802, another scientist named Bernard Germain de Lacépède put Zeus aper into its own special group, or genus, called Capros.
Meaning of the Name
The name Capros comes from a Greek word meaning "boar," and aper is Latin for "wild boar." Both names refer to the boarfish's snout, which looks a bit like a pig's snout. It's cylindrical and ends in a small mouth that can stick out, just like a pig's snout.
