Leaf fish
Leaf fish are also known as dead leaf fish, leaf-shaped fish, spiny leaf-shaped perch. Origin: Amazon, Guyana. The leaf-shaped fish is 10 cm long, tall, flattened on the sides, and resembles a leaf. The head snout is pointed, the mouth is large, and the mouth is split and slanted. The lower jaw is protruding with a hard tentacle on it. The upper and upper parts of the eye and the apex, the dorsal fin and fin base are very long up to the caudal stalk, and the number of hard spines is more than the number of soft fins. The pectoral fin is small, and the ventral fin is located slightly in front of the pectoral fin. The caudal stalk is short and the caudal fin is underdeveloped. The body color changes with the ambient light, there are green, there are also dry yellow, disguised as a fallen leaf floating in the water, not only to avoid strong enemies, but also easy to obtain prey small fish, insects, so it is said that it is a precious fish species with camouflage ability.
Chinese scientific name: leaf fish
Nickname: dead leaf fish, spiny leaf bass
Realm: Animal kingdom
Distribution area: Amazon River Basin, Guyana
Morphological characteristics
The body is 10 cm long, the body is tall, and the sides are flattened, resembling a leaf. The tip of the head snout. The mouth is large and the mouth is split and slanted. The lower jaw is protruding with a hard tentacle on it. Upper and upper eye and apex. The base of the dorsal and fins is long up to the caudal stalk, and the number of hard spines is more than the number of soft fins. The pectoral fins are small and largely transparent, and are used to maintain balance in the body. The ventral fin is located slightly in front of the pectoral fin. The caudal stalk is short and the caudal fin is rounded and underdeveloped. The body color changes with the ambient light, there are green, there are also dry yellow, the eye area contains a ribbon, which is conducive to them disguised as a fallen leaf falling in the water, both to hide from the wall strong enemies, but also easy to obtain prey jujube small fish, insects, is a precious fish species with camouflage ability. Its shape is very similar to that of a leaf , not only its face is similar to that of fallen leaves that sink into the water belly , but its swimming action is very similar to the situation of falling leaves sinking into the water. Sometimes it's not easy to make out. Its color is the color change characteristic of the family fish, which is the same color as the fallen leaves. This species of fish has its own unique form of mouth. The mouth has many folded wrinkles, which form a long and simple shape when opened, and the osteopod fish produced offshore Japan also has the same mouth.
Distribution area
These spiny perch fish live in South America, Africa and Asia: leaf-shaped and southern perch are native to the northeastern region of South America; the African spiny perch is home in west Africa; and the southern perch lives in Asia, where it is found from India to Thailand. The breeding methods of these fish also vary: leaf-shaped fish lay their eggs on their leaves; southern perch fish lay their eggs in burrows; and African spiny bass use bubble floating nests to spawn.
Feeding requirements
Leafy fish live in the still or slow waters of the Peruvian Amazon. This fish is introduced here to avoid someone inadvertently buying one and then putting it in a polyculture aquarium to raise, causing serious consequences. Leaf-shaped fish are full carnivorous fish and do not eat dead bait at all.
Leaf-shaped fish are predominantly brown and look like dead leaves. Body color is constantly changing: the first day may be dark brown, the second day it will turn golden, and the third day it will be "cloudy". At night, it presents a pattern that can only be described as clouds—brown spots on a light brown background. Leaf-shaped fish vary greatly in body color, and even the same leaf-shaped fish starts brown and turns creamy after half an hour. Leafy fish need to be kept in a special aquarium with wooden blocks implanted in a luxuriant longleaf crown (a South American Amazon saber-tooth plant), and a filter to control the slow flow of water. This fish is shy by nature and is not easy to adapt to the environment, so if they can already adapt to the aquarium environment, do not put other fish in the tank. When rearing, leafy fish should be provided with a mature water environment (weakly acidic soft water). If the water they are raised is not suitable for them, such as high nitrate content, the leaf-shaped fish will hold their fins on the sides of the body, stand still and refuse to eat.
Part of the time, the leaf-shaped fish will float aimlessly in the water with its head down, looking like a leaf drifting with the waves, and in order to make this camouflage more realistic, the tip of the leaf-shaped fish's lower lip also grows a small tentacle, resembling the petiole of a leaf. If you sprinkle some live bait in the water, these "leaves" will immediately come alive, swinging their fins, slowly drifting towards the prey, and when they are close enough, they will open their mouths and swallow the prey in one bite. Do not raise leaf-shaped fish unless they are continuously supplied with fresh small fish as bait.
Defense method
In order to defend against the enemy, many fish have their own special self-defense weapons and protective body colors; this is the case with leaf-shaped fish.
In the small river of South America lives a small fish, shaped like a leaf, the same color as the old leaves of the red leaf tree, the front end of the head has a small protrusion similar to the shape of the petiole, it looks like a leaf, when it passes through the water grass on both sides of the small river, it is really like a leaf falling from the tree on the shore, the movement of this fish is also very strange, in the water it seems to float down the water, without any swimming action, careful observation, can find that they are frequently swinging fins paddling, their fins are small, and transparent and colorless, They can hardly be seen swinging in the water. This is also a kind of leaf-shaped fish, leaf-shaped fish often lie motionless on the bottom of the water, almost no different from the leaves that fall into the water: even when they are caught in the net, they will not move, they must be carefully picked; the leaves that are caught can be found from them to find some "live" leaf-shaped fish, which have long heard of "fish eyes mixed with beads", but it is really rare to have "fish body mixed leaves" like mouth ten-shaped fish.
Breeding methods
Leaf-shaped fish reproduce in a similar way to some species in the family Cichlidae, in which the broodstock clear a leaf before the female lays eggs on that leaf, and the eggs and hatched calves are cared for by the male. If a sufficient amount of live bait is provided (and only if this condition is met), the calves are well fed. Fish eat bait equal to their own weight every day, so if you have 300 leafy fish in your aquarium waiting to be fed, the amount of live bait consumed will be considerable. Feeding them enough bait they love to eat can be difficult, and in the summer, you can collect enough aphids in the vegetable garden — but don't collect aphids that are sprayed with pesticides.