The pilot [1] , or the pilot fish [1] ( lat. Naucrates ductor ) - sea fish from the family of horse mackerel (Carangidae). Widely distributed in warm tropical seas.
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Content
Description
It is a cleaner of large marine vertebrates ( sharks , stingrays , sea turtles ), feeding on ectoparasites from the surface of their bodies. It also eats the remains of sharks and other predators [2] . The fry settle, moving with jellyfish and drifting algae. There are known cases of pilots following ships, and sometimes over considerable distances - up to leaving the tropics in the much colder northern waters (to the British Isles ) [3] [4] . Such behavior gave rise to various superstitions among sailors.
The meat of the pilot fish is edible and tastes very good [5] [6] .
Pilot fish can be seen near any species of sharks, but most often groups of fish are located near long-winged sharks [7] . Such connections are an example of mutualism - mutually beneficial cooperation of two or more different types; in this case, pilots clear sharks of parasites, and sharks protect pilots from enemies [8] . According to the testimony of sailors, fish have something like a “close partnership” [9] with large marine predators. There are references to the following groups of pilots after the ships that caught "their" shark. Such support could last up to 6 weeks [10] .
Regardless of the reliability of such evidence, sharks rarely eat pilot fish, and juveniles even clean out the remnants of food stuck between the teeth of a predator [11] .
Surfers stick special stickers on the boards that imitate the color of fish-pilots for protection against sharks [12] .
Body color bluish-white with 5-7 dark blue wide transverse stripes, light belly. In case of fright, it can quickly change color to silver-white with three large blue spots [13] . Body length up to 70 cm. On the caudal stem there are keels of thickened scales ; the first dorsal fin consists of three low spines.
It lives in all tropical and subtropical seas; sometimes penetrates into temperate waters in summer. Makes distant migrations. It feeds on small fish, crustaceans, etc. spawns in the open sea.
Etymology
There are two versions of the appearance of the name of the fish: the first is due to the fact that pilots often swim near the bow of the ship , thereby directing it to the port [14] . The second version is related to the sailors' belief that fish direct sharks to prey [15] [16] .
In Greek mythology, the sailor Pompilos helped escape the nymph Okirhou from the god Apollo. Pompilos transported the nymph from Miletus to the island of Samos. Upon learning of this, the angry Apollo turned Pompilos into a pilot fish [17] .
The image of the pilot is sometimes used as a negative metaphor - the fish appears to be a conductor of great trouble (trouble is a metaphor for a shark) [18] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Reshetnikov Yu.S. , Kotlyar A.N. , Russ T.S. , Shatunovsky M.I. Pentate-linguistic dictionary of animal names. Fish. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / edited by Acad. V. E. Sokolova . - M .: Rus. Yaz., 1989 .-- S. 258. - 12,500 copies. - ISBN 5-200-00237-0 .
- ↑ McEachran, John D. Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico. Volume 2, Scorpaeniformes to Tetraodontiformes . - Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005 .-- 1 online resource (viii, 1004 pages) p. - ISBN 0292706340 .
- ↑ Couch, Jonathan (1863). A History of the Fishes of the British Islands . Groombridge & Sons. p. 109.
- ↑ Yarrell, William (1841). A History of British Fishes (2nd. Ed.). John van Voorst. p. 170. The pilot-fish has been so often seen, and occasionally taken on our southern coast, as to be entitled to a place among British Fishes [.]
- ↑ Orr 1865, p. 50. "Its flesh is said to be very good."
- ↑ Yarrell 1841, p. 172. "After this the two [pilot] fish separated; but they were both taken the same evening, and, when dressed the next day, were found to be excellent eating. ”
- ↑ Stafford-Deitsch, Jeremy (2000). Sharks of Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico . Trident Press. p. 32. ISBN 1-900724-45-6.
- ↑ Webster, Stephen (2003). Thinking about Biology . Cambridge University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-521-59059-0.
- ↑ Couch 1863, p. 110-111.
- ↑ Murray, Hugh; Wilson, James; Greville, RK; Jameson, Robert; Ainslie, Whitelaw; Rhind, William; Wallace, Prof .; Dalrymble, Clarence (1832). Historical and Descriptive Account of British India, from the Most Remote Period to the Present Time . J. & J. Harper. p. 337.
- ↑ "The Deep-Sea Fishes Collected by the Talisman." Science . 3 (68): 623-8. May 23, 1884. doi: 10.1126 / science.ns-3.68.623 . PMID 17844329 .
It seems that Naucrates acts as a guide for the sharks, and that the latter, in recognition of its services, never pursue it.
- ↑ Hurley, Timothy (2003-11-06). "Company sold out of anti-shark device . " The Honolulu Advertiser . Retrieved 2007-07-26.
Sharkcamo sells rash guards and decals for surfboards and bodyboards that have zebralike stripes that mimic the pattern of certain fish — poisonous fish, cleaner fish, pilot fish and remoras — that sharks do not choose as prey.See also the Shark Camo website .
- ↑ Eschmeyer & Herald, p. 208.
- ↑ "Pilot Fish". The London Encyclopædia, or, Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature, and Practical Mechanics . Xvii . 1839. p. 396.
Seafaring people observe that this fish frequently accompanies their vessels;
and, as they see it generally towards the fore part of the ship, they imagined that it was guiding and tracing out the course of the vessel, and hence it received the name of pilot-fish.
- ↑ Andrews, Roy Chapman (1940). This Amazing Planet . GP Putnam's Sons. p. 88.
- ↑ Stedman, John Gabriel (1813). Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South America from the Years 1772-1777 . p. 400. ISBN 0-87636-015-0.
The pilot-fish ought here also to be noticed: this [...] is said not only to feed upon the gills of the shark, but to direct it to its prey, from which singularity originates its name.
- ↑ Athenaeus, Deipnosofistae 283e and Claudius Aelianus, De natura animalium 15.23.
- ↑ Watt, GD (1855). Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young . II . FD Richards. p. 188.
Links
- Pilot (fish of sem. Stavridovye) - article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (unavailable link from 12-10-2016 [1038 days])
- Pilot, fish // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 tons (82 tons and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.