Hello everyone, it's time for "Tao Ge Blind Vernacular", today continues the evolutionary history of ancient fish, and gives you a high nagging voice of Amazon fish species.
Before the vernacular, as usual, ask everyone a question, who is the top predator of fish in the cruel Amazon rivers?
Put aside the answer in your heart, maybe after you read this article, the conclusion will be different.
As one of the most ecologically complete and fiercely competitive environments on the earth, the Amazon basin has never been the habitat of the good people, for hundreds of millions of years, countless ferocious and domineering species have competed for the top spot of the ecological niche, and a protracted fierce battle has broken out, and today, Tao Ge will introduce you to the three most eye-catching people - piranhas, electric eels and giant bone tongues.
This Amazon", the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", dates back to the Triassic Period 200 million years ago.
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During the Triassic Period, the continents of the earth were not distributed in the shape of today, but were integrated into a single piece, called the "Great Gondwana Ancient Continent", also known as the "Southern Continent" or "Pangea Continent", and South America, where the Amazon River is located, is on the southwesternmost side of this continent -
The approximate shape of Pangea
Beyond the continent is a vast ocean, in the ancient and mysterious blue, the powerful ichthyosaurs are like the sun in the sky, they are huge, sharp teeth and fangs, whether cephalopods, arthropods, and even fish, all live under the shadow of the rule of ichthyosaurs.
Intimidated by ichthyosaurs and other predatory predators, many small fish are beginning to leave their homeland and are forced to travel to the barren fresh water. But like the migration of humans in the uncivilized era of civilization, the expeditions of these fish are full of blood, tears and misfortune, some of them died under the claws of reptiles at the mouth of the sea, some lost the spawning and breeding places that have been passed down from generation to generation, and some were difficult to survive due to lack of food and resources, and even the tragic situation of cannibalism between the same kind.
But eventually a subgenus of ray-finned fish called the Zimosi fish, relying on the characteristics of socialization, managed to gain a foothold in the inland rivers of South America at that time.
Neoprothintes, fossil found in Brazil, lived in the late Triassic period 200 million years ago
It is the common ancestor of the 147 genus of lipid carp in South America today, and among these lipid carp families, a notorious and discolored genus was born, the sawfish genus, in which the piranha is founded.
But compared with the ferocious descendants, the Zimosi fish has no claws and teeth before, and no behemoth after, their body length of 3 to 7 centimeters, even in today's Amazon River, is just a pre-dinner dessert for other creatures to fill the gap between their teeth, but it is such a gadget, which was found in a large number of fossil layers from the late Triassic to the early Jurassic, which means that they flourished in the fresh water of South America for a full 20 million years!
Even if there are no tigers in the mountains and monkeys are called kings, I have never heard that monkeys can be kings for 20 million years! Thus, in the middle of the Jurassic Period, the Creator applied a new species to the fresh water of South America, and the invasion of this species not only changed the biological history, but also sealed the Zimosi fish forever in the fossil layer before the arrival of the Cretaceous.
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The picture below is a rare fossil of a "big fish eating a small fish", this big fish is called a sword shooting fish.
How fierce are sword-shooting fish? It can be said that throughout the 300 million years of marine biological history, the sword-shooting fish with a body length of 5 meters and a weight of 500 kilograms is the only "large combat fish species" under the suborder of ray-finned fish that can be ranked in the first echelon of predators in the era of dragons.
Sword shoots fish
The bony-tongued suborder Rayfin fish was not only born in the Cretaceous Period, the ferocious creature of the sword-shooting fish, in fact, as early as the middle of the Jurassic Period, the Bony-tongued General Order had invaded the freshwater of South America, and when they first arrived, they found that freshwater was simply their own paradise compared to the extremely fierce competition for survival in the ocean!
There are countless rookies and fish with almost zero combat power, and at that time, the crocodiles in the middle of the tide are fighting with the dragons for territory, and they do not have much energy to concentrate on sweeping the river.
There are no natural enemies behind him, and the front of the body is full of delicious food, and the total eyes of the bone and tongue can really be described as "the platform QiLi with Chongyong, the cooking gold and jade waiting to ring the bell".
So what else is it said? Eat and you're done!
In order to do a better job, this lucky bone tongue has optimized its body shape, in addition to further increasing the size, a good pair of teeth is also crucial. About 150 million years ago, the Kalapiri fish under the eyes of the skeleton and tongue dominated the throne of the freshwater kings of South America, and no fish could be defeated.
Calamopleurus, fossils first found in the Santana Tectonic Region of Brazil
It is not difficult to judge from the fossil record that predators under the eyes of the bone and tongue generally actively hunt by swimming quickly, and once they are bitten, dozens of sharp and sharp teeth will be stuck in the flesh and blood of the prey, making it difficult to escape.
In this flying disaster, the life of the lipocarp family to which the piranha belongs is hanging in the balance, and for the survival and reproduction of the ethnic group, they have erupted with amazing fighting spirit and heroic resistance. Since the Cretaceous Period, the lipid carp that is not willing to become prey has grown fangs, and the first glimpse of the form of the piranha today, although from the perspective of individual combat strength, it is still impossible to compete with the ferocious bone tongue alone, but you may wish to imagine that on the one hand, there is a white tiger with teeth and claws, and on the other hand, there are wolves with 50 or even more than 100 heads, perhaps this analogy is not very appropriate, but it is very likely to be the real scene of the daily encounters of piranhas and arapaima ancestors 100 million years ago.
Perhaps in the long years, the positions of hunters and prey have been staggered, or perhaps the hunters have been greatly dissatisfied with their own efficiency and achievements, in short, about 120 million to 100 million years ago, another division of kings of the bone tongue appeared overnight in the freshwater rivers of South America, firmly occupying the top ecological niche, and never fell in the years to come.
The most amazing thing is that after hundreds of millions of years of vicissitudes and time, this bone tongue has hardly changed in appearance or habit, and people simply define its purpose by its name, which is the arapaima.
Arapaima I fished at night in the Amazon
Today, it is difficult for us to tell whether the arapaima evolved from the "sharp tooth stream" similar to the Karapiri fish, or whether it is another branch of the order bony tongue, but it is obvious that the survival strategy of the giant tongue is perfect, which is the most important reason why they have not changed much over the centuries - there is no need to change.
The brute force of the giant tongue can be seen here
The hard skin and scales comparable to human armor, the huge size of up to 2 meters, enough to open the underwater impact of the cracked stones, these are the capital of the "proud fish" of the arapaima. Their way of eating has also changed from tearing up and biting to swallowing with their mouths open — only the weak wrestle with each other, and the strong are gracefully smothered, which is probably the true mental monologue of the giant tongue.
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In the long but not too fierce confrontation between the ancestors of the piranha and the arapaima, there is a skeleton maw that has always lurked at the bottom of the river, and they have no sense of existence in the quiet years, but they have not disappeared for 170 million years.
In these 170 million years, the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic, the small extinction of the Toulon order, the Cretaceous asteroid impact, the Eocene extreme heat event, and countless natural disasters have failed to completely take away this bone maw, but under this general order, an electric eel that can be called the evolution of nature is born.
Calcari , which lived in the Cretaceous period about 80 million years ago , is the earliest fossil of the neofin suborder Electroetter has been found
It is impossible to know through fossils whether the ancestors of electric eels have the ability to discharge their descendants, but according to the rational judgment of the simple materialist view, at the latest 50 million years ago, that is, 15 million years after the Cretaceous asteroid hit the earth, the ancestors of electric eels began to embark on the path of "electric magic", on the grounds that in the fossil layer at this stage, there began to be a large number of small fish fossils associated with it - if it is a physical attack, an electric eel can only deal with one fish, and only magic can handle multiple at the same time.
Just as countless creatures eventually gave birth to only human beings, an intelligent civilization species, with the ability to "discharge", which also makes electric eels one of the few "magic masters" in the history of biological evolution, which means that they have the strength to challenge the power of the Amazon.
Please pay attention to my words - the magister, not the simple "magician".
According to the latest research by American scientists, electric eels can not only control the size of the current they emit, but also remotely manipulate organisms - the muscles of distant prey will be induced by the electric eel's current, involuntarily contracting movement, either directly paralyzed, or swimming out of the dead corner that is not conducive to the predation of electric eels.
This is very reverie.
I once fantasized about a scenario where electric eels live in groups like dolphins or killer whales and can evolve their size to be larger — imagine what a dreamy and hardcore scene it is for a group of 1,000 electric eels to pass by, sparks with lightning, gods blocking electric gods, and Buddha blocking electric Buddhas.
But in fact, the electric eel family does not have such a big ambition and appetite, they lock their genes locked in the size of 1.5 meters or so, do not dare to take the initiative to approach creatures larger than themselves, and even in order to facilitate the night when the prey is least vigilant, they actively choose to degenerate their vision and rely only on weak currents to explore the surrounding environment.
Although a single blow full of electricity can kill more than 30+ piranhas, or die with a caiman, most of the time, electric eels choose to act as the most low-key link in amazon's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" - they eat small fish and shrimp without pursuit, occasionally eat dead carrion, and even scientists have found plant residue in the stomach of electric eels.
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In the Amazon River today, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" of piranhas, arapaima and electric eels is still on the stage, but the emergence of human beings, especially the rapid development of science and technology and fishing tools in the past hundred years, has caused the three to suffer a huge disaster - unfortunately, these three are the local edible fish species in the Amazon for thousands of years.
Needless to say, in the eyes of the locals, it is equivalent to our Chinese pork, and the meat is more thornless;
Piranha, garlic clove meat, fried, crispy visible to the naked eye;
Even electric eels have been found by humans to find the weakness of "a long time to rest when you put electricity on once", first use other creatures to induce discharge, and then go into the water to capture it. I haven't eaten it, but according to the locals, it should be similar to the taste of eel tubes, tender and delicious.
I wonder what evolutionary strategies the Creator should give to these three species if they had knowledge to sustain the reproduction of the race?
Well, I am Tao Brother, love fishing can talk, like to pay attention to me, code words are not easy, give a thumbs up!