atheriniform

atheriniform, any member of the order Atheriniformes, containing 15 families of marine and freshwater spiny-finned fishes, including the flying fishes (see photograph), needlefishes, silversides, and cyprinodonts. The last group, the Cyprinodontidae, is an abundant tropical and subtropical family that includes the guppies, mollies, swordtails, and many other aquarium fishes. In addition to the Atheriniformes, this article treats the three smaller related orders Beryciformes, Zeiformes, and Lampridiformes, the most primitive groups of the superorder Acanthopterygii, or spiny-finned fishes.

General features

Beryciforms and zeiforms are mostly deep-bodied fishes of small to moderate size, a foot or less in length. The lampridiforms include a few rare, deep-bodied forms, notably the disk-shaped opah, which may reach more than 136 kilograms (300 pounds) in weight, but the majority are much elongated, ribbonlike fishes, including the giant oarfish, Regalecus, which reaches eight metres (25 feet) in length and is the probable source of many sea-serpent legends. The atheriniform silversides, flying fishes, needlefishes, and halfbeaks tend to be slender, elongate fishes, up to 0.3 to 0.9 metre (two to three feet) in length. The cyprinodonts and their relatives are diminutive and include some of the smallest vertebrates. Many cyprinodonts are important as experimental animals in biological research and as useful predators in the control of insect-borne diseases.

Natural history

Most beryciforms, zeiforms, and lampridiforms are inhabitants of the open oceans, usually living at considerable depth, and little is known of their natural history. All appear to produce numerous small eggs. The best known of the beryciform groups are the squirrelfishes and soldierfishes (family Holocentridae), abundant around coral reefs in warm seas. Typical of beryciforms, they are red in colour, with large eyes. Holocentrids are nocturnal, sheltering in crevices during the day and emerging at night to feed. They are notable sound producers, having special drumming muscles attached to the swim bladder, and many have connections between the swim bladder and the ear to improve hearing: presumably these sounds and their reception play some part in courtship. In holocentrids the young (larva) is quite unlike the adult, with a projecting spiny snout and enlarged spines in front of the gill cover. There is a pronounced metamorphosis (a major change in body plan on reaching maturity). It is probable that some of the deep-sea beryciforms undergo similar metamorphoses; the larva of the fanged Caulolepis was for many years placed in a different family from the adult, and the genus Kasidoron, recently discovered and placed in a distinct family, may be only the larva of Gibberichthys. Another family of beryciforms found near the surface is the Anomalopidae, or “strange-eyes,” so-called because of a large luminous organ lying directly below the eye, which is switched on by muscular eversion, turning the inside outward (in Anomalops) or by the withdrawal of a pigmented cover (in Photoblepharon). The Monocentridae, the bizarre pinecone fishes, are another beryciform group with luminous organs, in this case located on the chin. The majority of beryciforms are generalized predators, but a few coral-reef forms are grazers.

Among zeiforms, at least one species, Zeus faber, produces sounds by drumming muscles and breeds inshore. Little is known of the biology of the oceanic forms, but some certainly undergo metamorphosis, especially the Oreosomatidae, whose larvae are studded with large, spinous tubercles. All zeiforms are highly compressed fishes, with stiff bodies and long dorsal and anal fins: probably they swim by undulating these fins rather than by flexing the body. This slow, stealthy mode of swimming, coupled with their highly protrusile mouths, adapts them for stalking and engulfing prey.

The lampridiforms are all oceanic fishes. Metamorphosis is recorded in dealfishes and oarfishes, the young of which have rather deep bodies and greatly elongated fin rays. All are slow swimmers, and the larger forms, the opah and the oarfishes, which are characteristic of surface waters, use their protrusile, toothless mouths as traps for small, planktonic (free-floating) organisms. The deep-sea forms have feebly toothed jaws and are predators. A remarkable modification in one lampridiform, Lophotes, is the presence of an ink sac, discharging a viscous, black secretion into the hindgut, thence into the water. These fishes probably use their ink as a defense mechanism, as do squids. Stylephorus, a highly modified deep-sea lampridiform, has projecting, telescopic eyes.

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Among atheriniforms there is an extraordinary variety of locomotor, reproductive, and ecological adaptations. Locomotor modifications are most marked in the flying fishes, but the origin of the “flying” habit can be traced in flying fish relatives such as the halfbeaks, garfishes, and skippers. All are surface fishes of the open ocean and are capable of leaping or skipping on the surface, sometimes for considerable distances, thus allowing them to escape predators. The tail (caudal) fin is usually asymmetrical, with the lower lobe longer than the upper, and while the body is out of the water the lower lobe vibrates as a scull driving the fish along. True flying fishes have a similar asymmetrical tail, but the pectoral fins are inserted high on the shoulders and are greatly enlarged, with long, stiff fin rays supporting a web of skin. In the most highly evolved flying fishes, the pelvic fins are also enlarged and winglike. The fish accelerates under water by rapid vibration of the tail and fin, with the paired fins furled. On breaking surface, the pectoral fins are expanded, but the lower lobe of the tail remains in the water, sculling rapidly and accelerating the fish. The pelvic fins are then expanded, lifting the tail out of the water and initiating gliding flight. As airspeed is lost, the fish may fall back into the sea or furl its pelvic fins, dropping the lower lobe of the tail into the water and picking up speed for a further glide. Up to five repeated takeoffs have been observed, producing a total flight time of almost half a minute and covering several hundred yards.

Marine atheriniforms are mostly predators, the predatory habit being most highly developed in the garfishes and needlefishes, with their long, formidably toothed jaws. Freshwater atheriniforms are generally adapted for feeding at the surface, on insect larvae and small crustaceans.

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All atheriniforms are characterized by the production of few, large, adhesive eggs, by mating in pairs, usually accompanied by sexual dimorphism (i.e., the sexes markedly different), and many groups exhibit various reproductive specializations, the most advanced of which is viviparity (the production of functional young, instead of eggs). The young are normally miniatures of the adult and there is no metamorphosis. Sauries, needlefishes, flying fishes, and marine halfbeaks are pelagic (i.e., inhabiting open ocean) and breed either in the open sea (sauries, flying fishes) or near the shore (needlefishes, halfbeaks), the eggs often attaching to floating objects by adhesive filaments. The freshwater halfbeaks are mostly viviparous and have an elaborate courtship behaviour.

Atheriniforms of the suborder Atherinoidei fall into two groups, the silversides (Atherinidae and their close relatives) and the more specialized phallostethoids. The silversides are mainly freshwater fishes and show some reproductive specializations in courtship behaviour and sexual dimorphism (coloration and fin shape). They breed near the shore, attaching the eggs to plants. The grunion (Leuresthes tenuis) breeds on the California coast, schooling in the surf at extreme spring high water and spawning on the shore, where the female buries the eggs in the sand. The eggs hatch when they are exposed by the next spring tide, two weeks later. In phallostethoids, males have a fleshy, asymmetrical intromittent organ, the priapium, under the throat, formed from the modified pelvic fins. Although fertilization is internal, viviparity is not known to occur.

Even the most primitive atheriniforms in the suborder Cyprinodontoidei show the usual reproductive specializations of the group: sexual dimorphism and complex behaviour patterns in courtship and spawning. In the Mexican topminnows (Goodeidae) viviparity has developed, the embryos absorbing nourishment within the oviduct of the mother by means of threadlike outgrowths. In the live-bearers (Poeciliidae), an abundant group in the American tropics and subtropics, sexual dimorphism affects many parts of the body. Males have a complex intromittent organ, the gonopodium, formed of modified anal fin rays. One member of the group is oviparous, shedding the eggs while the embryo is only partially developed, but in the guppies, mollies, and swordtails, where the male is much smaller than the female and more brightly coloured, the young are born fully developed, and a series of broods, at about monthly intervals, may result from a single fertilization. In wild cyprinodont populations the sex ratio is frequently unusual, with many females to each male. In Jenynsia and Anableps (the four-eyed fish) the gonopodium and female reproductive opening are asymmetrical. Both dextral and sinistral forms occur within a species, dextral males mating with sinistral females and vice versa.

Ecological adaptations in atheriniforms are most marked in freshwater species. Cyprinodonts are among the hardiest of fishes and survive in the most rigorous environments. Some cyprinodonts have become adapted to life in hot springs in Africa and America and seem capable of surviving water temperatures approaching the coagulation point of protoplasm. Others survive in stagnant, almost or completely deoxygenated waters, either by taking in water at the surface film, or by breaking surface and gulping air, although no accessory respiratory structures are developed. Some cyprinodonts have overcome the rigours of a seasonal tropical habitat by becoming annuals, growing rapidly and reaching sexual maturity in small temporary bodies of water during the wet season, and on the approach of the dry season, mating and burying the eggs in the mud. The eggs can survive droughts for up to five years, hatching rapidly with the onset of the succeeding wet season. Perhaps another response to rigorous environments is the occurrence in some cyprinodont populations of functional hermaphrodites, capable of self-fertilization and hence of maintaining a population from one surviving parent.