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In many respects, fish anatomy is different from mammalian anatomy. However, it still shares the same basic body plan from which all vertebrates have evolved: a notochord, rudimentary vertebrae, and a well-defined head and tail. [5] [6] Fish have a variety of different body plans.
Fish locomotion is the various types of animal locomotion used by fish, principally by swimming. This is achieved in different groups of fish by a variety of mechanisms of propulsion, most often by wave-like lateral flexions of the fish's body and tail in the water, and in various specialised fish by motions of the fins. The major forms of ...
Different fish swim by undulating different parts of their bodies. Eel-shaped fish undulate their entire body in rhythmic sequences. Streamlined fish, such as salmon, undulate the caudal portions of their bodies. Some fish, such as sharks, use stiff, strong fins to create dynamic lift and propel themselves.
The deimatic display (a rapid change to black and white with dark 'eyespots' and contour, and spreading of the body and fins) is used to startle small fish that are unlikely to prey on the cuttlefish, but use the flamboyant display towards larger, more dangerous fish, [65] and give no display at all to chemosensory predators such as crabs and ...
Fish fins are distinctive anatomical features with varying structures among different clades: in ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii), fins are mainly composed of bony spines or rays covered by a thin stretch of scaleless skin; in lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) such as coelacanths and lungfish, fins are short rays based around a muscular central ...
A fish (pl.: fish or fishes) is an aquatic, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fins and a hard skull, but lacking limbs with digits.Fish can be grouped into the more basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish, the latter including all living cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians.
The body shapes of deep-sea fish are generally better adapted for periodic bursts of swimming rather than constant swimming. [ 26 ] Due to the poor level of photosynthetic light reaching deep-sea environments, most fish need to rely on organic matter sinking from higher levels, or, in rare cases, hydrothermal vents for nutrients.
Osteichthyes (/ ˌ ɒ s t iː ˈ ɪ k θ iː z / ost-ee-IK-theez; from Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon) ' bone ' and ἰχθύς (ikhthús) ' fish '), [2] also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue.