Blue fish is a general term for the fish of the family Siganidae, with a total of 27 species (some data show 28 or 29 species), which are widely distributed in the tropical and ** zone waters of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Most of the species of blue fish are colorful and good-looking, and they are very popular in the aquarium marketIn addition, some species of wild resources are abundant, and the meat is delicious and grows fast, and it is an important economic fish in many tropical and coastal countries.
The protagonist of this article, the yellow-spotted blue fish (Siganus oramin), is named after the many oblong small yellow spots on the head and sides of the body, commonly known as mud fish, ghost fish, stinky belly fish, etc., and is a common economic fish along the coast of South China. It looks mediocre, but it is actually a "contrasting cute" seed player, with several contrasting species characteristics, let's take a look.
Yellow-spotted bluefish.
He is timid by nature but has a large gallbladder
Yellow-spotted blue fish are timid by nature and react very strongly when stimulated. When frightened, the body color of the fish darkens sharply and jumps upwards, and the adult fish is more serious than the juvenile fish, and the highly stressed individual will even die directly after a convulsion (if it is "scared to death"). However, the dissection found that the timid blue fish had a large gallbladder relative to its petite size, the gallbladder was located at the back of its body cavity, and the liver and gallbladder were connected by an elongated cystic duct, which could be up to 30% of its body length. The gallbladder of the blue fish is a dark green ellipsoid, the wall is very thin, easy to break, in a short time after its death, the bile in the gallbladder will seep out to the body cavity, dyeing the body cavity near the pale green, and the taste is bitter when eating, so the nickname of "stinky belly fish" is worthy of its name, so the preservation of the blue fish is a problem.
Anatomical diagram of the macula bluefish: liver;gallbladder;spleen;Intestines;Gonads ;Fat.
As a marine fish, it has the characteristics of a freshwater fish
In general, the fertilized eggs of freshwater fish are heavy and sticky, while the fertilized eggs of marine fish are floating, which is related to the density of the water environment in which they are located. The salinity of fresh water is less than 05 g l, the density is less than that of fertilized eggs, and the density of seawater is greater than that of most fish zygotes due to the high concentration of sodium chloride and other mineral salts. As a genuine saltwater fish, the blue fish does not follow the usual path, and its fertilized eggs are heavy and sticky.
The fertilized eggs of the yellow-spotted bluefish adhere to the hatchery grass and PVC pipe walls.
Freshwater fish usually have the ability to synthesize high unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAS) on their own, and marine fish generally lack this ability or have poor synthesis ability, and their demand for HUFAS mainly depends on direct intake, so marine fish feed is more dependent on fish oil. On the other hand, the yellow-spotted blue fish has "superpowers", and it is a saltwater fish that has been discovered for the first time and has been proven to have the ability to convert linolenic acid and linoleic acid into hufas.
Blue fish are poisonous, but they can be used in medicine
There are hard fin spines on the dorsal fin, pelvic fin, and fin of the blue fish, and the root of the fin spine will secrete venom, and the venom contains a protein toxin, which will feel severe pain when stabbed, which can last for several hours, and can seriously cause limb paralysis, and it generally takes about 1 week to heal. So don't touch live blue fish (tip: Soaking the wound in hot water of 50 to 60 for about 1 hour immediately after the puncture can relieve pain and detoxify). Although the blue fish is poisonous, it is "in love with each other" and humans. According to Wu Hanlin's "Poisonous Fish and Medicinal Fish in China", drinking yellow spot blue fish soup often can nourish and strengthen the body;After taking fresh bile and soaking it in vinegar, bile can be ** otitis media and boils.
The nutritional value is high, and farmed fish is superior to wild fish
Yellow-spotted blue fish, although the appearance is not as glamorous as the fox blue fish, blue ribbon blue fish in the aquarium regulars, but the "connotation" is very rich, its muscle nutrition has all the characteristics of high-quality fish, rich in highly unsaturated fatty acids and minerals and trace elements, is a proper "nutrition expert", but also a large-scale aquaculture species actively recommended by marine aquaculture experts.
The study revealed that the meat quality of yellow-spotted bluefish was generally high in protein and low in fat, and the nutritional value was quite highThe crude muscle protein and crude fat of blue fish cultured in factory culture and high-level ponds are higher than those of wild fish, and the amino acid quality and flavor are also better than those of wild fish, especially the amino acid nutritional value of fish farmed in high-level ponds is the highest (click "Read the original article" at the bottom left to learn more about the study). Spotted bluefish is one of the few farmed fish that is tastier than wild fish.
Yellow spotted blue fish cultured in a high pond Huang Xiaolin |Photo 05
What was once a "supporting role" is now a "protagonist".
The feeding habits of the yellow-spotted blue fish are omnivorous and partial phytophagous, especially like to eat algae, and have the effect of cleaning the net, and have been used as a "tool fish" by farmers to raise in the cages of economic fish such as grouper and golden pomfret, and are considered to be low-end fish. Due to the low **, fishermen are even a little "disgusted" and reluctant to fish.
In the past ten years, more and more consumers have found that it is not only delicious and nutritious, but also can be diversified cooking, whether it is frying, boiling, stewing, making soup, or drying dried fish, all kinds of eating methods are very delicious, coupled with its short breeding cycle (3 months long to 2 two specifications can be listed), the market is stable (perennial in 20 30 yuan catty) and many other advantages such as strong resistance to small melon insects, has gradually become the main breed of coastal cage culture, in Zhanjiang, Guangdong and Dongshan, Fujian has become a large-scale aquaculture. The former "little supporting role" has also completed a gorgeous turn, properly getting the "protagonist halo"!
Write at the end: about names and classifications
"Blue fish" or "basket fish"?In related treatises, the expressions "blue fish" and "basket fish" appear, but the term "basket fish" is relatively more used. "Blue fish" is named because of the dark spots or patterns with blue tones that are commonly distributed on the body surface, while "basket fish" is named because it is rich in coastal resources and can be caught in large quantities with bamboo baskets.
The author prefers the first explanation - "blue fish", because the genus of blue fish not only has rich economic species, but also more species with bright body color and ornamental value, and the earliest systematic marine fish chronicles "South China Sea Fish Chronicles" and "East China Sea Fish Chronicles" recorded in the first systematic marine fish chronicles since the founding of the People's Republic of China are all "blue fish", which is more authoritative. Now everyone is Xi to write "basket fish", probably because there is a common word for "basket" in Chinese. Brown blue fish, longfin blue fish, yellow spotted blue fish, stupidly can't tell the differenceBrown bluefish [Siganus fuscescens (Houttuyn, 1782)], longfin bluefish [S.].Canaliculatus (Park, 1797)] and the yellow-spotted bluefish [SOramin (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)] Three species were named successively, and later ichthyologists identified longfin bluefish and yellowfin bluefish as homogeneous names, according to the species nomenclature, the scientific name that was first named should be used as the name of the species, so the longfin bluefish is the correct species name in academic terms. However, the scientific name of macula is more commonly known in the research and application after naming, so most of the articles still use the expression of macular.
The appearance of the yellow-spotted bluefish and the brownish bluefish are extremely similar, and some scholars have proposed to use the number of spots on the side of the body and the number of scales on the lateral line as the basis for identification. In the study, the author found that the body color of the blue fish will change due to the different environment, and the color change is more rapid in the stress state, so it is not easy to distinguish by body color and spots. In addition, the scales of blue fish are small and subcutaneous, making them difficult to count. The authors found that the genetic differentiation between the various populations was not obvious, and even shared a haplotype, and the natural distribution range of the two species overlapped, so it was speculated that there may be extensive natural hybridization. References:
1] Ma Qiang, Liu Jing. Overview of systematic research of blue fishes and research prospects of blue fishes in China[J].South China Fisheries, 2006, 2(4): 68-74[2] borsa p, lemer s, aurelle d. patterns of lineage diversification in rabbitfishes[j]. mol phylogenet evol, 2007, 44(1): 427-435. [3] kuriiwa k, hanzawa n, yoshino t, et al. phylogenetic relationships and natural hybridization in rabbitfishes (teleostei: siganidae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear dna analyses[j]. mol phylogenet evol, 2007, 45(1): 69-80.Related Articles:For more information about the nutrition and development of maula, please refer to the following articles:
1.Yang Yukai, Huang Xiaolin, Shu Hu, Lin Heizhu*, Wang Lan, Xun Pengwei, Yu Wei, Huang Zhong, Li Tao. Comparative analysis of muscle nutrient composition of maculated basketfish in different habitats[J].Southern Aquatic Sciences. doi: 10.12131/20210345.(Click on the bottom left to read the original article for more details).
2.Xiaolin Huang, Yukai Yang, Tao Li, Wei Yu, Zhong Huang, Heizhu Lin*, Hu Shu. Study on the first sexual maturity of gonadal development of pond-cultured yellow-spotted basketfish[J].South China Fisheries Science, 2020, 16(5): 99-107
3.Huang Xiaolin, Yang Yukai, Li Tao, Huang Zhong, Yu Wei, Lin Hei*Morphological observation and growth study of juvenile, juvenile and juvenile maculars in macula basket[J].South China Fisheries Science, 2018, 14(5): 88-94Written by |Edited by Huang Xiaolin |Yan Shuai.
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