| Oriental Flying Gurnard |
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| dactylopteridae | |
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FLYING GURNARD(DACTYLOPTENA ORIENTALIS) The Flying Gurnard is easily confused with the flying fish, who leap out of the water, which Flying Gurnards don’t do. The Flying Gurnard huge, round pectoral fins. These fins look like they should be used for flying, but in fact they help the fish walk on the bottom of the ocean. The fins are usually held against the body, but when threatened they can expand the wings to scare off the predator, then retracts them, quickly swimming off. If you look closely, you can see little fingers coming out of the wings. Also, Flying Gurnards have legs, the pelvic fins act like legs as the Gurnard “walks” along the bottom of the ocean. As if this wasn’t a weird enough fish already, these fish also grunt, actually, coming from a French Term, the word gurnard means to grunt. The “wings” have many dark markings and the edge of the fins are a bright blue.Its body is usually a grayish brown color with dark markings. They grow to about 38 cm in length. They range in depth from 10 feet to 100 feet in the water, in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean from England to Argentina, in tropical regions, from 35°N - 37°S. They feed on bony fish, bivalves, and crustaceans. Predators include sea breams and mackerel. |
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