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The body is often fusiform, a streamlined body plan often found in fast-moving fish. Some species may be filiform ( eel -shaped) or vermiform ( worm -shaped). Fish are often either compressed ( laterally thin and tall) or depressed ( dorso-ventrally flattened).
Like most fish, the tilapia has a streamlined body shape reducing water resistance to movement and enabling the tilapia to cut easily through water. Its head is inflexible, which helps it maintain forward thrust. [3] Its scales overlap and point backwards, allowing water to pass over the fish without unnecessary obstruction. Water friction is ...
The collision causes drag against moving fish, which is why many fish are streamlined in shape. Streamlined shapes work to reduce drag by orienting elongated objects parallel to the force of drag, therefore allowing the current to pass over and taper off the end of the fish. This streamlined shape allows for more efficient use of energy locomotion.
A typical fish is cold-blooded, has a streamlined body for rapid swimming, extracts oxygen from water using gills, has two sets of paired fins, one or two dorsal fins, an anal fin and a tail fin, jaws, skin covered with scales, and lays eggs. Each criterion has exceptions, creating a wide diversity in body shape and way of life.
The streamlined body of the fish decreases the amount of friction from the water. A typical characteristic of many animals that utilize undulatory locomotion is that they have segmented muscles, or blocks of myomeres , running from their head to tails which are separated by connective tissue called myosepta.
Fish with this body plan tend to have a more streamlined body, higher aspect ratios (long, narrow wings), and higher wing loading than fish with the biplane body plan, making these fish well adapted for higher flying speeds. Flying fish with a monoplane body plan demonstrate different launching behaviors from their biplane counterparts.
Open water fish are usually streamlined like torpedoes to minimize turbulence as they move through the water. Reef fish live in a complex, relatively confined underwater landscape and for them, manoeuvrability is more important than speed, and many of them have developed bodies which optimize their ability to dart and change direction.
Their diet varies considerably as well: some may eat zooplankton; others may eat fish, squid, shellfish, and sea-grass; and a few may eat other mammals. In a process of convergent evolution, marine mammals such as dolphins and whales redeveloped their body plan to parallel the streamlined fusiform body plan of pelagic fish.