Originally posted by Clowd
What is the name of this fish? Mud puppy? I need more info on it. Habitat, its food etc
Mudskipper.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is an extract from David Attenborough\'s "Life on Earth" :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" One of the most crucial episodes in the history of life took place some 350 million years ago in a freshwater swamp. Fish began to haul themselves out of the water to become the first back-boned creatures to colonise the land. To cross this frontier, they - like the first terrestrial invertebrates - had to solve two problems: first, how to move around out of water, and second, how to obtain oxygen from the air.
There is one fish alive today which manages to do both these things - the Mudskipper. It is not closely related to those fish who pioneered the land, so any comparisons with them have to be made with caution, but even so it can give us a hint about how that momentous move was accomplished.
Mudskippers are only a few centimetres long and you can find them in mangrove swamps and muddy estuaries in many parts of the tropics, lying on the glistening mud well beyond the lap of the waters. Some may even be clinging to arching aerial roots of the mangroves or clambering up the trunks. A sudden movement or an abrupt noise will send them skittering back to the safety of the water. They come out to feed on the insects and other invertebrates that swarm on the oozy surface of the mud. they move by suddenly flexing the hinder end of their body so that they give a little skipping jump. But they also have a steadier, more sober way of edging themselves forward with their front pair of fins. Each of these has a fleshy base supported internally by bones - the fin is, in effect, a rigid crutch. With it the fish can lever itself forward...
But what solution could the early fish find to the problem of breathing out of water? The Mudskipper manages to do so by holding water in its mouth which it swills over the lining of its mouth with a rolling action of its head to extract oxygen. It also absorbs some directly from the air through its moist skin. But these devices allow it to remain out of water for only a short time. Within a few minutes it has to return to wet its skin and take a fresh mouthful of water. "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~thebobo/mud.htm