Animalia > Chordata > Cypriniformes > Cobitidae > Misgurnus > Misgurnus fossilis

Misgurnus fossilis (Weatherfish; Weather-fish; Mud loach)

Synonyms: Cobitis fossilis (homotypic); Misgurnis fossilis; Petromizon variegatus (heterotypic)
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Wikipedia Abstract

Misgurnis fossilis is a species of loach in the genus Misgurnus. It is commonly known as European weatherfish or European weather loach, due to its activity patterns changing when air pressure rises or falls. If there is a sudden change in barometric pressure, the weatherfish comes to the surface and swims about excitedly. In water with a low oxygen content it gulps air; it extracts oxygen through its intestinal mucous membrane, which has a complex system of blood vessels. It feeds on thawed frozen blood worms, small fish, brine shrimp, earthworms and some vegetables. It is quite an active loach and can grow to a length of 30 cm.
View Wikipedia Record: Misgurnus fossilis

Attributes

Brood Dispersal [1]  In the open
Brood Egg Substrate [1]  Phytophils
Brood Guarder [1]  No
Maximum Longevity [3]  22 years
Migration [2]  Potamodromous
Diet [1]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Central & Western Europe Austria, Belgium, Byelarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom Palearctic Temperate Floodplain River and Wetlands    

Protected Areas

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Predators

Channa argus (Spotted snakehead)[4]
Ciconia boyciana (Oriental Stork)[5]
Huso huso (Beluga)[4]

Consumers

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Grenouillet, G. & Schmidt-Kloiber., A.; 2006; Fish Indicator Database. Euro-limpacs project, Workpackage 7 - Indicators of ecosystem health, Task 4, www.freshwaterecology.info, version 5.0 (accessed on July 3, 2012).
♦ 2Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 3Frimpong, E.A., and P. L. Angermeier. 2009. FishTraits: a database of ecological and life-history traits of freshwater fishes of the United States. Fisheries 34:487-495.
♦ 4Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 5Oriental Stork, BirdLife International (2001) Threatened birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International.
♦ 6Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0