Esociformes

Esox masquinongy

The pike -like ( Esociformes ) are an order of bony fishes ( Osteichthyes ), on which the European pike (Esox lucius ), four other species of pike and three others, usually referred to as a dog fish smaller genera belong.

Dissemination

All pike -like freshwater to live in the northern globe, in Europe, Asia and North America, mostly in temperate and cold zones. They are found with deposits in northern Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska in the Arctic regions. Only with deposits in the south of France, in northern and central part of Italy, on the Balkan Peninsula, with the exception of Greece, and in the zones adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico southern states of the USA they reach warmer regions.

Features

Typical of the pike -like fish is an elongated body with a central, large tail fin and rear laid their anal and dorsal fins, which provide mainly for high acceleration. Closely related to this is the way of life. Pikes are decency hunters, they hide in the thicket of aquatic plants and come suddenly to their prey. They eat other fish, amphibians and waterfowl.

System

The Esociformes are usually placed in the Protacanthopterygii with the Salmoniformes, the salmonids, and two further orders. Of these three orders, they differ from one another by the absence of an adipose fin. However, it could be that the Esociformes not represent the derived sister group of Salmoniformes in the Protacanthopterygii, but the primitive in the Neoteleostei ( Wiley and Johnson 2010).

The monophyly of the pike -like ( Esociformes ) is acknowledged. Traditionally, they have been divided into two families, the pike ( Esocidae ), where only the genus Esox belonged, and the dog fish ( Umbridae ), which included the three other genera. Phylogenetic studies have recently shown that the genera Dallia and Novumbra are more closely related Esox than Umbra. Novumbra is the sister group of Esox, both together are the sister group of Dallia. All three genera together are the sister group of Umbra.

Today there are four genera and twelve species, also an extinct family of two genera.

  • Pike ( Esocidae ) (Family) Pike (Esox L. 1758) Northern pike (Esox lucius)
  • Esox cisalpinus
  • Amurhecht (Esox reicherti )
  • Muskellunge (Esox masquinongy )
  • Chain pike (Esox niger)
  • American pike (Esox americanus)
  • Olympic - dog fish ( Novumbra hubbsi )
  • Novumbra sp. †, Oligocene of Oregon.
  • Dallia pectoralis Bean, 1879
  • Dallia admirabilis
  • Dallia delicatissima
  • Umbra Walbaum, 1792 Hungarian dog fish ( Umbra krameri ) Walbaum, 1792
  • American dog fish ( Umbra limi ) Kirtland, 1840
  • Small dog fish ( Umbra pygmaea )
  • Palaeoesox †, Eocene.
  • Boltyshia †, Paleocene and Eocene.

Swell

  • Kurt Fiedler: Textbook of Special Zoology, Volume II, Part 2: fish. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena, 1991, ISBN 3-334-00339-6.
  • Joseph S. Nelson: Fishes of the World. John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7.
  • E.O. Wiley and G. D. Johnson ( 2010): A teleost classification based on monophyletic groups. In: J. S. Nelson, H.-P. Schultze, and M.V.H. Wilson ( eds. ): Origin and Phylogenetic Relationships of inter teleosts, pp. 123-182.
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