Salangidae, the icefishes or noodlefishes, are a family of small

osmeriform The Osmeriformes are an order of ray-finned fish that includes the true or freshwater smelts and allies, such as the galaxiids and noodlefishes; they are also collectively called osmeriforms. They belong to the teleost superorder Protacanthoptery ...

fish, related to the

smelts Smelts are a family of small fish, the Osmeridae, found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans, as well as rivers, streams and lakes in Europe, North America and Northeast Asia. They are also known as freshwater smelts or typical smelts ...

. They are found in Eastern Asia, ranging from the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...

in the north to

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

in the south, with the highest

species richness Species richness is the number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of species, and it does not take into account the abundances of the species or their relative a ...

in China. Some species are widespread and common, but others have relatively small ranges and are

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensat ...

. Depending on species, they inhabit coastal marine,

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

or fresh water habitats, and some are

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

, only visiting fresh water to spawn.

Appearance and life cycle

They are slender, have translucent or transparent bodies and almost no

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number w ...

(females are entirely scale-less, while males have a few). The head is strongly depressed and has numerous teeth. The adults are believed to be

neotenic Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compared ...

, retaining some larval features. For example, the skeleton is not fully ossified, consisting largely of

cartilage Cartilage is a resilient and smooth type of connective tissue. In tetrapods, it covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints as articular cartilage, and is a structural component of many body parts including the rib cage, the neck an ...

. They are small fish, typically around long; only a few reach , and the largest species no more than . Icefish rapidly reach maturity, have a high

fecundity Fecundity is defined in two ways; in human demography, it is the potential for reproduction of a recorded population as opposed to a sole organism, while in population biology, it is considered similar to fertility, the natural capability to pr ...

and typically only live one year. Some species live in the same habitat throughout their lives, but other visit specific habitats, like rivers, estuaries or the surf zone, to lay their eggs. In at least '' Salangichthys microdon'' there are both populations that are resident and populations that are anadromous.

As food and introduced species

Icefish support important fisheries and are eaten in East Asia, often after being dried or cooked. They are also exported to southern Europe for use as a replacement for the more expensive

transparent goby ''Aphia minuta'', the transparent goby, is a species of the goby native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean where it can be found from Trondheim, Norway to Morocco. It is also found in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, Black Sea and the Sea o ...

, a Mediterranean species used in the local cuisine. Because of their value as food fish, there have been many attempts of

introducing Introducing or Introducing... may refer to: Albums * ''Introducing'' (Bombay Rockers album), 2003 * '' Introducing... The Beatles'', 1964 * '' Introducing... Mari Hamada'', 1993 * '' Introducing...Rubén González'', 1997 * '' Introducing ... Tal ...

icefish (especially certain ''

Neosalanx ''Neosalanx'' is a genus of icefishes native to Eastern Asia, ranging from Korea, through Japan and China, to Vietnam. They inhabit coastal marine waters, estuaries and river basins (including lakes). There are both species that are threatened a ...

'' and ''

Protosalanx ''Protosalanx'' is a small genus of icefishes that are native to China, Korea and Vietnam where they primarily inhabit coastal waters and nearby fresh waters. They are commercially fished and used for aquaculture in China, where also introduced ...

'') to regions in East Asia where not native. Most attempts failed, but several were successful, and in some cases the icefish rapidly multiplied and became the most common fish in their new habitat. Feeding on

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

ic crustaceans and tiny fish, they have outcompeted certain native fish like ''

Anabarilius grahami The Kanglang fish (''Anabarilius grahami'') is a species of cyprinid fish. It is a pelagic species Endemism, endemic to Fuxian Lake in Yunnan, southern China. However, the species may now be in the process of extinction because of the introduced n ...

'', which have become rare and threatened.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q134852 Fish of Asia Ray-finned fish families

Appearance and life cycle

As food and introduced species

See also

References

External links