Form, Function, and Locomotory Habits in Fish
1978; Academic Press; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s1546-5098(08)60163-6
ISSN1557-8011
Autores Tópico(s)Ichthyology and Marine Biology
ResumoThis chapter discusses the form, function, and locomotory habits in fish. Most fish swim by pushing back against the water with undulations of their body or their fins. Water is unfavorable in that it presents a yielding medium against which to push, and much energy may be wasted in making profitless eddies. Few species of fish walk on the bottom underwater with their paired limbs. On the other hand, those fish that make excursions out onto land usually have to resort to walking or skipping in some fashion, as the air provides an insubstantial medium against which their usual body undulations can act. Some fish are capable of brief aerial locomotion by passive gliding rather than by flying (and swim underwater by conventional body undulations). They are comparable to those restricted groups of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles that can glide but are not primarily adapted to this mode of locomotion. Only few fish (including the Gasteropelecidae and Pantodon ) can fly in the air by beating their wings. The formidable problems of simultaneous adaptations for locomotion, both in midair and underwater, have been overcome among the vertebrates only by diving birds such as loons.
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