The black-winged hatchetfish (''Carnegiella marthae'') is a freshwater

ray-finned Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or hor ...

fish native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

.Aquarium Fish by Dick Mills from DK Handbooks George Myers named this fish after his first wife Martha.

Description

Black-winged hatchetfish has a convex body. It has a very deep ventral profile with its

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

set back. This species has wing-like pectoral fins that often extend to half of the fish's body length. In general, coloration is silver with black patches and stripes but, depending on the angle of light, colors may vary. A stripe that is usually gold stretches horizontally from the gill cover the base of the tail. Black-winged hatchetfish can reach up to in length.

Distribution and habitat

Black-winged hatchetfish live in the calm

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

s and pools of the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

and

Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...

region in

Diet

Black-winged hatchetfish are

omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutri ...

. They can be fed live as well as flake foods. In the wild, they feed mainly at the surface for

insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of j ...

, but can also eat

crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

In the aquarium

Black-winged hatchetfish are peaceful fish that will do well with many other types of tropical fish such as smaller species of catfish and

tetra Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA; formerly known as Trans-European Trunked Radio), a European standard for a trunked radio system, is a professional mobile radio and two-way transceiver specification. TETRA was specifically designed for use by go ...

s. Make sure that there are small floating plants. Cover every hole at the top of the aquarium because in the wild, hatchetfish catch insects by jumping out of the water. Blackwinged hatchetfish inhabit the top of the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

References

Gasteropelecidae Freshwater fish of South America Taxa named by George S. Myers Fish described in 1927 {{Characiformes-stub

Description

Distribution and habitat

Diet

In the aquarium

See also

References