Classification

Fish

Brief Description

The body is as long as a snake and is shaped as an eel. Its body is like a cylinder with a flat tail. The size of the head is middle and cone-shaped, the front of the head is flat with no cirrus. The mouth is big and slanting, the split of the mouth could reach the bottom of the rear edges of both sides. The surface is slippery and mucilaginous and cover long, thin and tiny scales. The siding of the fish is perfect. The dorsal fin, the caudal fin and the anal fin are healed over. The distance from the starting point of the dorsal fins to the gill is longer than it is to the anus, and this is one of the characteristics to identify the fish. The pectoral fin is short and round. The fish has no ventral fin but has a tip tail. There is no stripe in the siding. The back is grey and brown and the belly is white. The rear part of the dorsal fin and the anal fine are black, the pectoral pin is white. The length of the ripe fish is about forth centimeters and the weight is about one kilogram. The biggest one could reach the length of 130 centimeters and the weight of five kilograms. The fish could live about 17 years.

Habitual Behavior ： They are the kind of fresh-water fish and stay at the low sea-level of rivers, deep pools, dams and the caves or gaps at the bottom of the pond. They are nocturnal hunters of little fish, little shrimp and aquatic insects and aquatics. Generally, they will lay eggs in the sea in the seasons of fall and winter. The hatched young fish will drift with the ocean current. After they become Snipe eels, they will go up the river with the flood-tide and grow up at the fresh-water. This kind of fish is the proterozic in Taiwan . It is rare to see wild ones presently.