Abstract
CAUDAL Respiration in Periophthalmus.—At the Birmingham meeting of the British Association, in 1886, Dr. S. J. Hickson pointed out that the species of Periophthalmus which he had observed in the Celebes always rested with its tail immersed in water, although the body was out of the same. I do not know whether any experiments have been made on this fish, but I have made a few which tend to show that this remarkable animal largely respires by means of its caudal fin. The experiments were made on specimens obtained from a Mangrove swamp on the Island of Mabuiag (Jervis Islands), and may be summarized as follows:—A specimen totally submerged in the sea was perfectly well and lively after forty-two hours. A second specimen lived a day and a half in a vessel containing just sufficient water to keep the tail-fin submerged, but not enough for respiration by means of the gills. (It is possible that the fish would have lived longer, if the sea-water had been continually renewed.) Fish with the caudal fin coated over with gold size, when put in a vessel of sea-water, only lived, on an average, from twelve to eighteen hours, although they could utilize their gills for respiration; others kept under similar circumstances, but not anointed with gold size, lived a day or two, apparently in perfect health. On submitting the caudal fins to the microscope, the circulation of the blood appeared to be exceptionally vigorous. I hope to be able to further test these observations on a future occasion.
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
HADDON, A. Zoological Notes from Torres Straits . Nature 39, 285–286 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/039285a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/039285a0
This article is cited by
-
Evidence for Fishing with Remora across the World and Archaeological Evidence from Southeast Arabia: A Case Study in Human-Animal Relations
International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2023)
-
Time and tide wait for no fish: intertidal fishes out of water
Environmental Biology of Fishes (1995)