1. The document discusses three types of marine fishes: jawless fish (hagfish and lampreys), cartilaginous fish (sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras), and bony fish.
2. Hagfish feed by grabbing prey with tooth-like plates and drawing it into their mouth, while lampreys use plates to grasp, rasp, and suck fluids from victims.
3. Cartilaginous fishes have skeletons of cartilage, placoid scales, and rows of teeth on their jaws. Sharks are excellent swimmers but must keep moving to avoid sinking, while skates and rays have flattened bodies and enlarged pectoral fins adapted for bottom feeding.
3. JAWLESS FISH
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Hagfish
Lamprey
Modern jawless fish include
the hagfish and lampreys
which both still lack jaws
and paired appendages.
Their skeletons are entirely
composed of cartilage and
their bodies lack scales.
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Hagfish
– also known as slime eels
- deep-sea bottom dwelling fishes found throughout the world.
- inhabit depths of more than 600 m, often in the tropics, although
they are sometimes found in the shallower seas.
- Hagfish feed using two dental plates, containing horny cups, with
which grab their prey and draw it into their mouth.
- They feed primarily on small invertebrates but may also be
scavengers on larger carcasses found on the sea floor.
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Lampreys
-Lampreys can inhabit both salt and freshwater.
-They have a rudimentary vertebral column.
-Their mouthparts consist of an oral disk and rasping tongue
covered with toothlike plates of keratin
Several species use these plates to grasp prey, rasp a hole in
the victim and suck out the tissue and fluids.
Marine lamprey species spend their adult life in the open
oceans but have been found to migrate to freshwater to spawn,
where they die shortly afterwards.
6. CARTILAGINOUS FISHES
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Modern cartilaginous fishes include sharks, skates, rays and chimaeras, which
possess both jaws and paired fins.
Their skeletons are composed entirely of cartilage, although this is often
strengthened by calcium salts.
The bodies of cartilaginous fishes are covered in placoid scales.
They have several rows of teeth on their jaws.
There are two major groups of cartilaginous fishes:
the elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays)
and the holocephalans (chimaeras and ratfish).
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Sharks
Sharks typically have streamlined bodies and are excellent swimmers, using
their strong body in a sideways sweeping motion.
Sharks do not possess swim bladders, and so will sink if they stop
swimming. To counteract this buoyancy problem, their livers contain large
quantities of an oily substance called squalene, which helps to offset the
shark’s high density.
Their heterocercal caudal fin and enlarged pectoral fins also help maintain
position in the water column.
9. MYTHS ABOUT SHARKS
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1. Sharks are man-eating, blood-thirsty creatures. False.
Sharks do not naturally hunt humans.
Most occurrences of a shark attack are due to poor water visibility
or curiosity rather than predatory intentions.
2. You are more likely to be struck by lightning, or killed in a car
accident than attacked by a shark. True.
3. Sharks can detect a single drop of blood in the ocean. False.
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SEATWORK #1
1.Which shark is the biggest of all the species?
2.Which shark is the biggest meat-eating shark?
3.Which shark is the fastest?
4.Which shark is the scariest ever?
5.Which shark is the most dangerous?
6.Which shark lays eggs?
7.Which shark is the smallest?
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Skates and Rays
Skates and rays differ from sharks by having flattened bodies with greatly
enlarged pectoral fins, reduced dorsal and caudal fins and no anal fins.
Their eyes and spiracles (openings for the passage of water) are located
on the top of their heads while their gill slits are on the ventral side,
allowing debris-free water to enter through the spiracles and
be passed out over the gills.
Most skates and rays are adapted to live a benthic lifestyle where they
feed on invertebrates (e.g. crustaceans and mollusks) using
their specialized crushing teeth.
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Chimaeras
Chimaeras are generally bottom dwellers found in a variety of habitats from
the shallows to deep waters.
They include species such as the ratfish, rabbitfish and spookfish.
Unlike other cartilaginous fishes, their gills are covered with an operculum
and water is taken in through the nostrils before being expelled over the gills.
Chimeras are oviparous, producing large eggs in leathery cases.
They feed on a variety of prey, including crustaceans, mollusks and fish,
crushing them between oral plates (instead of teeth).
Notas do Editor
All fishes are vertebrates and have a series of bone or cartilage that supports their spinal cord and provides attachment sites for muscles.
Marine fishes can be found from the surface waters to the deepest trenches; from the highly diverse coral reef communities to the almost barren open oceans.
The earlies fishes lacked both paired fins and jaws, and probably spent their time scavenging for food in the bottom sediments of the early seas.
Hagfish can produce large amounts of milky gelatinous slime when disturbed. This slime is thought to be used for protection as it coats the gills of predatory fish, either suffocating them or at least discouraging them.
They have very large nerves, making them a great subject for neurobiological research
Their caudal fin is heterocercal in shape, meaning the dorsal (upper) lobe is longer than the ventral (lower) one, which gives the shark lift as it swims (Figure 9.4).
over 75% of all shark species will almost never encounter a human being and/or are incapable of consuming a human. Most occurrences of a shark attack are due to poor water visibility or curiosity rather than predatory intentions, hence why shark bites are much more common than fatalities. While it is extremely rare attacks can occur.The notion that a shark can smell a single drop of blood in the ocean has been largely overexaggerated due to the hysteria that often arises when discussing these creatures. Sharks do, however, have an extremely acute sense of smell and a sensitive olfactory system.
How Many Types Of Sharks Are There?
As of today, there are about 400 types of sharks in the world.
Although they may be visually very similar, skates and rays have very different morphology and behavior. Rays often grow larger than skates (Manta rays can be up to 7m wide) and reproduce in an ovoviviparous manner, meaning that the fertilized egg is retained for development within the female reproductive tract