"Spring silkworms to the end of the dead silk, the wax torch into gray tears began to dry." It is a famous sentence recited by the Tang Dynasty poet Mr. Li Shangyin. Silkworms are an insect of the order Lepidoptera, also known as silkworms. It and spiders are the two small animals that spit silk closest to our "circle of friends" of humans. Silkworm silk can be made into quilts, clothes, etc. after processing, while spider silk is even more powerful and can be used to create bulletproof clothing that "knives and guns can't enter". However, in the magical nature, there are at least 100,000 species of animals that are known to spit silk. Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, Spinopoda... There are many small partners who can spit silk, and can use organs such as mouth organs, front feet, digestive tubes, and skin secretory glands to spit silk.
Chinese spiny fish
Chinese spiny fish, also known as stingray and nine-spined fish, is a species of fish in the genus Spiny fish in the family Spiny fish. Chinese spiny fish are mainly distributed in the Heilongjiang, Songhua, Tumen, Liao and Yangtze River basins in China, and there are also small populations in The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula and Japan in Russia.
As the name suggests, the most obvious feature of Chinese spiny fish is the hard spines on their backs that make the enemy "shudder". Depending on the individual, the Chinese spiny fish has 7-9 hard spines, but they are collectively referred to by scientists as the "first dorsal fin". In the back is the second dorsal fin, which is born opposite the fin.
Chinese spiny fish are small fish, the body length is not more than 4, 5 cm, the whole body is spindle-shaped like a miniature torpedo. They prefer to inhabit still-water bends, lakes and wetlands where aquatic grasses are abundant.
This is strange, why should a good fish learn to spit "others"?
Hey, the role of this Chinese spiny fish is too important for them. From mid-to-late April every year, chinese spiny fish begin to make preparations for reproduction. The males are the first to feel the rise in water temperature, and the color of their bodies turns dark gray-brown, and they emit a bronze metallic luster under the illumination of the light.
Its first priority now is to build a safe nest suitable for females to spawn. But for a small fish, this is not an easy task. However, fortunately, our Chinese spiny fish hides a "stunt" of spitting silk. At this time, under the stimulation of hormones in the body, the Chinese polyelin will secrete a transparent mucus from its own kidneys, which is continuously discharged from its "ass", and condenses into a filamentous and has a strong viscosity solid state when it encounters water. Using these viscous filaments, they are able to wrap and glue the surrounding aquatic weeds and rhizomes to form a round or oval nest. These nests are also attached to aquatic plants or stones through silk, and there is no danger of being washed away in rivers, lakes and other places where the water flow is gentle.
After the female spawns, she leaves without looking back, leaving only the spiny father to protect the eggs and juveniles. During the incubation of the eggs, male spiny fish have another important task. That is, the pectoral fin is used to continuously fan water on the fish eggs inside the nest to ensure that there is sufficient dissolved oxygen inside.
However, the temper of the Chinese spiny fish father during the egg protection period is quite "hot". Once there are idle people and so on close to the territory it has determined, it is a catch who bites whom, and there is no mercy left.
At present, the Chinese spiny fish has been included in the "Aquatic Wildlife Protection List" by Beijing Municipality.
Parrot fish
Parrotfish, also known as parrotfish, but zoologists call them Roselle neck finfish. They are a marine fish of the order Perch, Bulbophyllaceae, Subfamily Lipfish, and Genus Neckfinfish, mostly living in tropical and subtropical areas with coral reefs. Its population is extremely widespread, and can be found in the Western Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea and the Andaman Sea. In China, it is mainly distributed in Guangdong, Taiwan, Fujian and Hainan provinces and regions along the southeast coast.
Parrot fish are named for their brilliant colors, colorful patterns and mouth shape similar to the mouth shape of a parrot. Their short, towering heads are one of their most obvious features, varying in body color depending on the species and gender. The body of the parrot fish is oblong, generally about 50 cm long, and the largest species can grow to more than 1 meter.
The most peculiar thing is that the mouth of the parrot fish is not only quite large and can be protruded, but also the teeth are also very good, not only can it chew off the seaweed attached to the reef, but even the hard coral reef can be chewed.
This parrot fish with a pair of "iron teeth and copper teeth", what is it for?
The reason is actually very simple to introduce in order to knit a piece of your own "pajamas". What the!? A fish that also sleeps in pajamas? That's right!
Whenever the sun slowly sets from the sea level, the coral reef gradually becomes quiet. After a busy day, the parrot fish also intends to sleep comfortably. However, in the midst of a sea of dangers, it is not easy to get a good night's sleep. Maybe somewhere in the dark, the predator is staring at the parrot fish.
As a result, the parrot fish will continue to secrete mucus from the mouth before going to sleep, and the mucus will condense into silk when it meets water. Just like the spring silkworm spit silk, with the continuous increase of filamentous substances, the parrot fish can "weave" into a "airtight" cocoon-shaped pajama in two hours with the cooperation of the abdominal fin and the tail fin.
This kind of pajamas woven of mucus has a certain flexibility, and the average predator can't help it. Of course, the main function of parrot fish pajamas is to prevent problems before they occur. It turns out that its pajamas are actually a film of water formed in the water by spitting out silk, which can prevent its own odor from being released into the sea water and thus avoid predators.
The trouble, though, is that the parrot fish has to work hard every morning to break through their pajamas and get out of it. However, "things are unpredictable", once the parrot fish is sick or injured, it is very embarrassing to have no strength to tear their pajamas. Because of the passage of time, the oxygen inside the parrot fish can only be regarded as "cocooning itself" and dying.
Ribbon worms
The ribbon worm , also known as the proboscis worm , is an animal of the phylum Ofeloids , the order Needles , the order " Needles , the family Longitudinal Nymphalidae , and the genus Phylloscopus. Also known as snouts, there are 1275 species recorded worldwide, from the South Pole to the Arctic. But the vast majority of them inhabit shallow coastal shoals, with only a tiny fraction living on freshwater or on land.
Ribbon worms are a relatively primitive invertebrate, their bodies are narrow and long, flattened bands, and their body length is generally between 5-20 cm. Some time ago, a video about the ribbon worm suddenly "caught fire" on the Internet. It turned out that in the video, a dark red ribbon worm was placed on the hand, and it instantly spat out a string of tree-like "white silk" from the head.
So, what about the ribbon worm spitting silk?
Originally, the snout of the ribbon worm existed in the snout cavity near the head, about one-third of the length of the body, which was milky white and had a relatively special structure, belonging to the "tube-in-tube" structure. When it is stimulated externally, it quickly squirts out a milky white filamentous snout from the snout cavity, accompanied by a large amount of mucus.
Because the ribbon worm itself is small, it acts very "low-key" and usually only appears in the crevices of rocks or coral reefs. It is rarely seen, and little is known about its habits. When I accidentally saw the ribbon worm "spitting out" the silky kiss, I mistakenly thought that this guy would even spit silk.
Auricular scallops
Auricular scallops are a large shellfish belonging to the mollusk phylum, bivalves, mussels, and the family Jiangyao clams (Jiangyao clam family). Auricular scallops are distributed only on the shallow sea sandy muddy seabed between 0.5 and 60 meters along the Mediterranean coast. The shell of the pinna scallop is large and thin, yellowish brown, and has a broad shape at the lower tip. Depending on the habitat water quality, light and nutrients, the size of the auricular scallops is also very different. The average individual is between 30 cm and 50 cm, but the largest can grow to more than 1.2 m.
This is strange, is this shell also spit silk? What are they for?
It turned out that this pinna scallop lived a camp semi-buried burrowing life. Simply put, it is to bury half of your body in the sediment on the seabed, and then expose half of it to rely on filtering the nutrients in the seawater to survive. However, the wind and waves in this ocean are not small, if they are fixed and unstable, and if they are not carefully washed away by the sea, it will be tragic.
As a result, in the long process of evolution, the auricular scallops grew in the body with silky foot glands. The silk foot glands secrete a mucus composed mainly of keratin and other proteins, which become tough protein fibers when it encounters seawater. Auricular scallops use these filaments with a length of about 6 centimeters to firmly fix themselves to the rocks on the seabed.
The italians used the "silk" of auricular scallops to make textiles, dating back to the late first century AD. The silk of the post-processed pinna scallops glows golden in the sun. Therefore, Europeans also call this silk the "golden thread" in the ocean. It is said that in the thirteenth century a piece of clothing made of silk from auricular scallops was worth 1,000 gold coins.
Today, museums around the world preserve less than a hundred pieces of silk fabric made from silk from auricular scallops. This year, China also added the term "mollusk fiber" to the classification of "animal fiber" in the natural fiber terminology standard, and included the silk of the auricular scallops as "sea silk".