The flooding caused the river to swell, breaking through farmland, destroying villages, and causing fish from various rivers to swim everywhere, and everyone often saw all kinds of "strange fish". For example, after a heavy rain in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, local villagers saw a lot of "strange fish" coming from the river. Although they are small, their shells are unusually hard and fierce, and they can be pierced if they are accidentally scratched by hand. This fish is the climbing perch endemic to the southern part of the continent.
Climbing bass
The climbing bass, also known as the crucian carp, is a fascinating native fish. Its appearance may be similar to the crucian carp that some people are familiar with, but the climbing bass has an amazingly ferocious nature and unique adaptability. Let's take a look at this eye-catching fish.
Climbing perch belongs to the family Cyprinidae. They live in China's rivers and lakes, especially around Guangxi and Yunnan. The body of the climbing bass is spindle-shaped, and the length is generally between 10 and 15 cm, and the maximum can reach 25 cm.
Climbing bass
Their bodies are covered with hard scales. This hard shell seems to be an impregnable barrier between it and the world. These scales are like carefully polished pieces of iron, like solid shields, densely attached to the climbing bass's body, they are tightly arranged and seamlessly connected, providing it with super defense. Whether from the current in the water or from the attack of other fish, the climbing bass's hard shell not only provides strong protection, but also provides it with better swimming and hunting flexibility, allowing the climbing bass to stand out in the freshwater world, showing its ferocious strength and fearless courage to any challenger.
Climbing perch over the mountains
Climbing perch excels in terms of adaptability. They are able to walk on land and use hard scales and fins to support their bodies. This unique behavior has given the climbing perch the nickname "Crucian Crucians". While climbing bass can't survive on land for as long as land animals, they can jump from body of water to body in a short period of time in search of better habitat or predation opportunities.
The climbing perch is a predatory fish that feeds on small invertebrates and other fish. With sharp teeth and a strong bite, they are able to quickly catch and devour prey. Climbing bass are very active in foraging, often swallowing hooks and bait whole, making it difficult for anglers to catch them. It is said that if you use earthworms to fish for climbing perch, a box of earthworms is used up, and you can't catch a few. This makes the climbing bass a source of challenge and nightmare for fishing enthusiasts.
Ferocious roller coaster
There was once a case of the murderous nature of the climbing bass. It is said that when a fish pond owner in Guangxi was preparing to cultivate tilapia on a large scale, he found that the number of tilapia in the fish pond was getting smaller and smaller, and the size of the individual was not up to expectations. To find out why, he drained one of the ponds and was surprised to find that it was almost entirely full of fish called "iron-hulled fish", which were supposed to be mixed in when tilapia fry were stocked. He was surprised to find that this small fish, known as the climbing perch, ate tilapia clean.
This discovery has aroused the interest of fishing enthusiasts and fishermen, who have witnessed climbing perch "eating up" many exotic species in local waters, such as tilapia and sunfish. Some have even begun to conceive of large-scale stocking of climbing bass to control the rapid spread of tilapia in Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and other places.
However, the idea of stocking climbing perch to contain tilapia has not been widely promoted in reality, because the ferocity of climbing perch poses a threat not only to tilapia, but also to other native fish such as crucian carp and carp. The ferocious nature of the climbing perch means that stocking the climbing bass may lead to a significant decline in native fish and disrupt the local ecological balance.
Climbing bass
Although the climbing perch is a native fish that used to be common in ditches and rivers around Guangxi and Yunnan, and many local residents caught it as a child, we rarely see them now. However, with environmental changes and interference from human activities, the population of climbing perch gradually decreases and becomes rarer. This is mainly due to habitat damage caused by water degradation and overexploitation. Because climbing perch has high requirements for water quality and relatively weak pollution resistance.
As a representative of native predatory fish, climbing perch plays an important role in maintaining the ecological balance of rivers and lakes. They control the population of small invertebrates and other fish in nature, and play a role in regulating the ecological balance. Therefore, the protection of climbing perch is not only to protect one fish stock, but also to protect the entire ecosystem. Let's work together to protect and restore the habitat of climbing perch and contribute to the conservation of climbing perch and other native fish.