Vol. 7, No. 3 Kansas Wildlife & Parks Winter, 1997 Fish, Fish, and More Fish Inside... A Fish Is A Fish When? . 2 Did You Know . 3 It’s All In The Family . 4 Oh Give Me A Home Where The Fish Roam . 6 Aliens in Our Midsts... Non-Native Fish In Kansas . 8 AYear In The Life Of A Biologists . 9 Investigate A Fish . 10 Red Alert . 10 Reference Center Addedum . 11 Fishy Who’s Who . 13 The Wild Exchange . 14 Kansas Earth Day Events . 16 Words of W.I.L.D. 17 What’s Happening . 19 A Fish Is A Fish When? When asked to describe a fish, most of us . Most fish posses five types of fins would answer that fish live in water and used chiefly for stabilizing, steering, and take in oxygen through gills. Many kinds of braking. These are the dorsal fin on the animals that live in water are mistakenly centerline of the back, the tail fin, the anal called fish, from jellyfishes to starfishes. As fin on the underside opposite the dorsal fin, a rule, fish are rather easy to recognize a pair of pelvic fins on the belly, and a pair because they possess a combination of char- of pectoral fins behind the head. The pelvic acteristics not found in other animals. and pectoral fins can be compared to the Typically, fish are cold-blooded animals with arms and legs of mammal and their posi- backbones, gills, fins instead of legs, and tioning on the fish provides an important scales covering the body. Most are torpedo means of identifying the major groups of or football-shaped-- the shape best suited for fish. moving through water ( a medium much denser than air) , however, some are round, . Most bony fishes are covered others are flat, and still others are angular. with scales. Scales are small, thin struc- tures, generally overlapping, and usually Fish are the made of bone. Scales grow throughout life, most numerous increasing in size with the fish. Growth, in of all verte- many species, results in concentric rings of brates. No one bone being laid down and allows biologist to knows exactly age a fish by counting the rings. how many kinds of fish there are . The air bladder is a but even the thin-walled hollow sack that allows a fish to most conserva- adjust its density to match that of the sur- tive estimates rounding water, thereby, making the fish indicate more "weightless". than 15,000 species of fish with some estimations as . Like all other animals, fish high as 40,000 species. One thing is certain, possess the five major senses of hearing, however, there are nearly as many fish sight, smell, taste, and touch. Sound travels species as all other vertebrates combined. better in water than air and fish have good hearing, accomplished through the inner ear Fish are also masters of occupying a wide and sometimes aided by the air bladder. variety of places. They live almost every- where there is water. They have been found The sense of smell is highly developed in in the waters of the Antarctic, in hot springs many fish and experiments have shown that of more than 104OF, and in water saltier some fish recognize their home by its smell. than the seas. Their vertical range of distri- Fish detect odors through the nares (nos- bution also exceeds that of any other verte- trils) located between the eyes and in front brate. Fishes range from approximately 3.1 of the snout. miles above sea level to some 6.8 miles beneath it. Taste is another important sense for fish. It is less important, however, to those fish To the Greeks, fish were known as that locate food by sight. Unlike other verte- ichthyes and today, the scientific study of brates, fish can have taste buds outside the fishes is known as ichthyology. The common mouth( i.e. on the whiskers of catfish) since name fish comes from the Latin word pisces. they are not subject to drying out in their watery world. On T.R.A.C.K.S. 2 Fish are near-sighted due to the optical sense has been called "distant touch" and qualities of water. This is no great hardship may be thought of almost as a form of since turbidity and other factors can greatly underwater radar or sonar. Any motion in reduce the amount of light available for dis- water causes vibrations of very low frequen- tance vision. cies and causes pressures on different parts Finally, fish possess a sense to which of the surface of the fish. These pressures humans and other vertebrates have no com- are detected by the lateral line, a series of parison--that is the lateral line system. This tubular canals mostly under the scales. The first vertebrates to appear on earth Some species of sturgeons become sexu- were the fish, some 350,000,000 years ago. ally mature only after they reach the age of twenty or more years. The world’s largest fish, the giant bask- ing shark, can reach a length of 45 feet. It Minnows have teeth in their ‘throat’ feeds on tiny organisms called plankton. instead of their jaws. A dog shark was caught almost four A female sturgeon may lay up to five thousand miles from where it was tagged. million eggs at one time. It had traveled from the American Pacific coast to the Japanese coast. A thirteen-inch mullet may have a diges- tive tract seven feet long. Some electric rays produce more than 200 volts, enough to light up four average The largest striped bass on record (125 light bulbs. lbs) was caught in North Carolina. Adult paddlefish don’t have teeth, but It requires, on the average, 700 man- the young do. hours to catch a muskellunge by hook and line. On T.R.A.C.K.S. 3 It’s All In The Family There are three classes of living fishes today: the Bowfins (Family Amiidae) jawless fishes ( lampreys and hagfishes) the carti- This family con- laginous fishes (sharks, skates, rays, and related tains only one living fishes), and the bony fishes. Ninety-seven percent of species. They have the world's fish species belong to the group of bony been reported to fishes. bury themselves in the mud of drying pools, and sur- vive until rains restore their lake. Not common in Although Kansas is not famous for its fishes, there Kansas. are over 120 different species of fish to be found here. No species of fish is only found in Kansas, but a few Freshwater Eels (Family Anguillidae) are more abundant here than in any other state. Many kinds of eels are found in the The following is a list of the families of Kansas seas, but only one fishes in phylogenetic order* ( from the most primi- species occurs in the tive to the most advanced): freshwaters of North America. Eels are a Jawless Fishes (Class Cephalaspidomorphi) brownish-colored fish with a slender, snakelike body. Lampreys (Family Petromyzontidae) No eels ever begin life in Kansas--they are born more Lampreys are than 3000 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. remnants of a group of jawless fishes Herrings (Family Clupeidae) that lived more than 350 million years ago. The Gizzard shad is the mouth is a sucking disc since the adults are parasitic best known member on other fishes. The chestnut lamprey is found in of this family in Kansas only in the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. Kansas. They are important food for Cartilaginous Fishes (Class Chondrichthyes) most of the game fish No representatives in Kansas in reservoirs and can be considered the most abundant Kansas fish. Bony Fishes (Class Osteichthyes) Sturgeons (Family Acipenseridae) Mooneyes (Family Hiodontidae) These fish resem- Goldeyes generally ble sharks somewhat occur in large rivers in their appearance and get their name esp. due to their large upper tail fin. The eggs of from a reflective sturgeon, known as caviar, is world famous. layer of tissue behind the visual cells that produces an "eye shine". Paddlefish (Family Polyodontidae) One of the most Trout (Family Salmonidae) unusual fish to There are no self- grace Kansas sustaining popula- waters. A distinctive tions of trout in feature of this fish is its long, paddle-shaped snout Kansas, however, at whose function is still not known. Even though it is least six species have one of the largest freshwater fishes, reaching weights been introduced here over 100 lbs, it feeds only on microscopic organisms in the past. Stockings in some waters occur in the that it strains from the water. winter months. Gars (Family Lepisosteidae) Pikes (Family Esocidae) Gars are easily rec- Northern pike ognized by their slen- were introduced der, cylindrical bodies into Kansas start- and long beaks heavi- ing in 1962 to help ly fortified with teeth. In gars, the air bladder can stabilize reservoir function as a lung allowing the gar to survive out of fish populations. Walleye, of the perch family, are the water for more than an hour. These are the only sometimes mistakenly called "walleyed pike!" fish in Kansas having toxic parts --their eggs are poi- sonous. Kansas is home to three species of gar. On T.R.A.C.K.S. 4 Minnows (Family Cyprinidae) Silversides (Family Atherinidae) More than a third The brook silver- of all the different sides is the only kinds of fish is widespread freshwa- Kansas are minnows ter species in a fami- and minnows are ly that is mainly marine. easily the most successful group of fishes in Kansas and most of the freshwaters of the world.