''Xenentodon cancila'', the freshwater garfish, is a species of

needlefish Needlefish (family Belonidae) or long toms are piscivorous fishes primarily associated with very shallow marine habitats or the surface of the open sea. Some genera include species found in marine, brackish, and freshwater environments (e.g., ' ...

found in freshwater and

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 ...

habitats in

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

Common names

As a reasonably popular

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 ...

fish, ''Xenentodon cancila'' has been traded under a variety of common names, including needlefish, silver needlefish, Asian freshwater needlefish, needlenose halfbeak, freshwater gar, needlenose gar and numerous others. While belonging to the same family as the marine needlefish known in Europe as gar or garpike, ''

Belone belone The garfish (''Belone belone''), also known as the garpike or sea needle, is a pelagic, oceanodromous needlefish found in brackish and marine waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Black, and Baltic Seas. Description Th ...

'', these fish are much more distantly related to other fishes sometimes called gars (such as the North American

gar Gars are members of the family Lepisosteidae, which are the only surviving members of the Ginglymodi, an ancient holosteian group of ray-finned fish, which first appeared during the Triassic, over 240 million years ago. Gars comprise seven livin ...

s and South American pike characins). In

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

it is locally known as Kokila. It is known as "Yonna (යොන්නා) or Habarali (හබරලි)" in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Distribution

The freshwater garfish is widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia from India and

to the

Malaysian Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

Morphology

In common with other needlefish, this species has an elongate body with long, beak-like jaws filled with teeth. The dorsal and anal fins are positioned far back along the body close to the tail. The body is silvery-green, darker above and lighter below with a dark band running horizontally along the flank. Slight

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

exists, the male fish often having anal and dorsal fins with a black edge. It reaches a length of .

Diet

While aquarium books tend to describe this fish as a

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

that eats animals such as fish and

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s, its natural diet appears to consist almost entirely of

crustacean 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 ...

Reproduction

This species is

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...

. In aquaria at least, spawning takes place in the morning, with small numbers of eggs being deposited among plants. The eggs are about in diameter and are attached to plant leaves with sticky threads about . The eggs take ten days to hatch, at which point the fry are almost long. At this point they will eat small live foods including week-old

labyrinth fish The Anabantoidei are a suborder of anabantiform ray-finned freshwater fish distinguished by their possession of a lung-like labyrinth organ, which enables them to breathe air. The fish in the Anabantoidei suborder are known as anabantoids or ...

Human significance

Freshwater needlefish support minor

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...

and are also traded as aquarium fish.

In the aquarium

The freshwater needlefish is one of several of needlefish species kept in public and home aquaria. It has been kept by European aquarists since 1910, and was first bred in captivity at the Biological Station Wilhelminenberg,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in 1963. ''Xenentodon cancila'' is generally considered quite a difficult species to maintain because of its large size, nervous behaviour, and preference for live foods.Monks N: Straight to the point: the Beloniformes.

Practical Fishkeeping ''Practical Fishkeeping'' (also known as ''PFK'') is a United Kingdom-based aquarium magazine. It is published every four weeks by Warners Publications Plc. The title covers the entire aquatic market from tropical freshwater and tropical marin ...

, October 2005 Alongside misunderstandings of the natural diet of these fish,Monks N: Pocket-sized Pikes.

Tropical Fish Hobbyist ''Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine'' (abbreviated as ''TFH Magazine'') is a bimonthly magazine geared to hobbyist keepers of tropical fish, with news and information on a variety of topics concerning freshwater and marine aquariums. The magazine w ...

, April 2007 there has been confusion over the optimal water conditions required by this species when kept in home aquaria, with the addition of salt to the water often being recommended. These fish do perfectly well in freshwater aquaria.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q374419 Belonidae Fish described in 1822