superclass bony fish belongs to the class of vertebrates and comprises two classes.One of them contains the ray-finned fishes.It consists of more than 30 orders and 500 families.Second - lopastoperye fish (lungfish and crossopterygian).
Bony fishes live in all waters of the Earth - in salt and fresh water, from both poles and the equator.They are distributed as the coast and in the most inaccessible depths of the seas and oceans.Like bone, and have cartilaginous fish have fins, that is, paired limbs.However, bone and cartilaginous fishes are essential features.First of all, it concerns the skeleton and head: they have these parts completely bone.Just the same, and the covering of these fish - scales formed bony plates.
bony gill arches of fish (their five pairs) are located on the sides of the pharynx.They are in the form of gills drooping petals.Nostrils - paired, in the inner ear has semicircular canals (three of them).The structure of the fish of this superclass distinguishes the gill cavity, covered with bony gill cover.Swimbladder located inside the body, in its upper part.Grab your jaw with teeth form a mouth.The length of these fish varies widely: from 70 to 500-700 cm, respectively, and their weight ranges from a few kilograms up to one and a half tons.
bony fish first appeared about 400 million. Years ago.Gradually, compared with other fish and vertebrates living on land, they achieved the greatest diversity.Basically, bony fish have a body shape reminiscent of a torpedo.But there are arrow shaped fish (saury, garfish, barracuda, a pike), ribbon-like (vogmery, moray eels, tsepoly, acne) and spherical (Kuzovkov, monkfish, puffers).A seahorse and does resembles the figure of a chess knight.The fins and paired and unpaired, helps the fish to adjust the position of the body.The main body of their movement - is the tail.Although some of the fish (such as the moon, pipefish, triggerfish) change location due to undulations of the unpaired fins.On the head and on both sides of the body of bony fish have a so-called lateral line - sensitive organ equipped with the channel pore.It is peculiar only animals living in the water.The lateral line helps them perceive the strength and direction of flow.Because of this, even blinded fish is able to avoid obstacles and catch prey.
Spina almost all representatives of the superclass is colored darker than the sides and belly - the lightest area on the body of the fish.Such coloring is protective.Dark difficult to distinguish the back on the water surface, when viewed from above, from the air.And if looking at the fish from the bottom, towards the sky, it is not easy to notice the bright abdomen.Coating depends on where and how deeply live fish.Typically, the color repeat their environment.There is also another type of protective coloration: colorful circles, stripes on the body, the spots on the tail, resembling the eye.All this confuses the enemy and prey, since the shape of the fish visually deformed, its contours are broken apart.Furthermore, the color serves as a means of identification individuals of the species, including both sexes.
Some bony fish can jump out of the water, flying in the air at the same time more than one hundred meters.Many of them in the swim bladder or gill cavity appeared even such devices, which allow them in humid tropical air long enough to stay out of the water.And mnogoperyh and lungfish swim bladder is made up of cells.This similarity lungs allows them to breath atmospheric air.
bony fish play an important role in the practical life.In many countries, fishing - one of the main sectors of the economy.Fish - is not only useful and delicious food.It serves as an excellent raw material for the manufacture of a medicament (fat) feed for poultry and livestock (feed meal) fertilizer to the ground (Tukey), glue, technical fat and other products that are used in the food and light industries.
