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What does the chimera fish eat?
Chimaeras are found on the ocean floor and use their grinding tooth plates to eat clams, fish, and crustaceans.
Why is the Chimaera known as the rabbit fish?
Chimaera monstrosa, also known as the rabbit fish or rat fish, is a northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean species of cartilaginous fish in the family Chimaeridae. With large eyes, nostrils, and tooth plates, the head gives them a rabbit-like appearance, hence the nickname “Rabbit fish”.
Where do Chimaera sharks live?
Found in temperate to cold waters of all oceans, chimaeras range from rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters to oceanic depths of 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) or more. They are weak swimmers and are delicate when caught, dying quickly out of water. Their food consists of small fishes and invertebrates.
Are chimaeras dangerous?
Shortnose chimaeras have a venomous spine on their backs, which is sufficiently dangerous to injure humans. They are found in temperate and tropical marine waters worldwide.
Can you eat a ghost shark?
The ghost shark is caught commercially along the continental shelf off southern Australia and New Zealand. It is often sold as silver trumpeter or whitefish fillets and used in “fish and chips”.
What do ghost sharks look like?
The body is silvery white, similar to aluminum foil in color and occasionally has dark markings posterior to the eyes as well as on the fins. The ghost shark has three pairs of hypermineralized tooth plates.
Is a Chimaera a shark?
Chimaera are closely related to sharks, skates and rays. But they diverged from their shark relatives around 400 million years ago. They differ from sharks as they have: Upper jaws that are fused to their skull.
Is a Ratfish a shark?
Ratfish are members of the oldest order of fishes alive today. They are distant relatives of sharks—so distant, and so much older, that they could be called unsharks. The oddly beautiful spotted ratfish gets its unlovely name from the tapering tail that accounts for half its body length.
What kind of food does a chimaera shark eat?
WHAT DO THEY EAT? Chimaera seem to be opportunist feeders. Feeding mainly on bottom-dwelling invertebrates, such as crabs, molluscs, octopuses, marine worms and sea-urchins. Crushing them with their 3 rows of tooth plates. Like sharks, chimaera use electroreception to find their prey in the dark.
What are the characteristics of a Chimaera fish?
Chimaeras also have some characteristics of bony fishes . A renewed effort to explore deep water and to undertake taxonomic analysis of specimens in museum collections led to a boom during the first decade of the 21st century in the number of new species identified.
Who are the main predators of Chimaera fish?
In general, the main predators for chimaeras are larger fish and sharks. Humans are also a threat to certain species of chimaeras that can be found closer to the surface of the ocean. In addition, while they may not technically be considered predators, scientists have noted that chimaeras are often covered in parasite colonies.
Are there parasites on the gills of chimaera?
As other fish, chimaeras have a number of parasites. Chimaericola leptogaster ( Chimaericolidae) is a monogenean parasite of the gills of Chimaera monstrosa; the species can attain 50 mm (2.0 in) in length. ^ a b c Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2014). “Chimaeriformes” in FishBase. November 2014 version.