The mouth is large and protractile, and both upper and lower jaws have tiny teeth for eating fishes, worms, crustaceans, and other small aquatic animals at night.
|
|
The mouth is protractile, and the lower jaw juts out. Sizes are fairly small, typically up to about , but T. chatareus can reach . Archerfish are popular for aquaria, but difficult to feed since they prefer live prey.
|
|
Normally there are no scales on top of head, although sometimes small and circular may be present. The mouth is protractile but its gape is restricted by a ligament situated about a third of the way along the mouth.
|
|
Inland fishes of Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson. 1-624 pp. They have a maxillary barbel, the premaxilla is protractile, and the upper lip is separated from the skin of the snout by a deep groove that is continuous along the midline.
|
|
This species reaches up to in length and has an unusual protractile mouth. It feeds on zooplankton and will shift sand, similar to the distantly related Geophagus eartheaters of South America. Like many other Tanganyika cichlids, it is a mouthbrooder and occasionally seen in the aquarium trade.
|
|
They open wide enough to swallow a fish larger than the eel itself. Distichodontidae are a family of fresh water fishes which can be divided into genera with protractile upper jaws which are carnivores, and genera with nonprotractile upper jaws which are herbivores or predators of very small organisms.
|
|
Some research suggests that breast shells used on inverted nipples may either hinder or have no effect on the mother's ability to breastfeed successfully. One study of women with inverted or non-protractile nipples found no statistically significant difference in breastfeeding success between using breast shields and doing nothing.
|
|
Capros aper commonly reaches a length of about 13 cm in males, with a maximum length of about 30 cm. The weight reaches about 85 g. The female is larger than male. This fish has large eyes, a quite long snout, and a very protractile mouth that forms a short tube when extended.
|
|
The pectoral fins are also yellow. The head is white, the eyes are black and linked together by a black band. The snout, spotted with black, is a bit stretched with a small terminal protractile (it can be extend) mouth. The juvenile doesn't have yet after the second black stripe any white area like adults.
|
|
The common bream lives in schools near the bottom. At night common bream can feed close to the shore and in clear waters with sandy bottoms feeding pits can be seen during daytime. The fish's protractile mouth helps it dig for chironomid larvae, Tubifex worms, bivalves, and gastropods. The bream eats water plants and plankton, as well.
|
|
The painted comber has a laterally compressed, elongate body with a pointed snout. The dorsal fin has 10 spines and 4-16 soft rays and the anal fin has 3 spines and 7-8 soft rays. The caudal fin is truncate. It has a very large mouth for its size, which has many sharp teeth, and is protractile.
|
|
The females grow to over twice the size of the males which can have a total length of , and females reach . In structure it is a rather robust species, depressed towards the rear with a rounded tail and it has a compressed head which has a small, oblique mouth with a protruding lower jaw and a protractile upper jaw.
|
|
In addition, Eurotrochilus appear to have long nasal openings and large hyoid bones. The large hyoid bones are thought to support a long protractile tongue, which extant hummingbirds use to lap up nectar. All of these adaptations made it possible for Eurotrochilus to consume nectar from ornithophilous flowers, its main source of nutrients, and to pollinate these flowers as well.
|
|
Head shows a short snout and a small protractile mouth. This bannerfish has a distinctive yellow coloration pattern on the mouth, top of the snout and running between its eyes. The posterior part of its dorsal fin, its caudal fin and the pectoral fins are orange- yellow. Juveniles have an ocellus which is a black spot rimmed with orange- yellow, on the bottom of its anal fin.
|
|
The black pyramid butterflyfish is a small-sized fish that can reach a maximum length of 18 cm. Its body is compressed laterally with a rounded body profile. The snout is somewhat stretched with a small terminal protractile mouth. The body is black, crossed in its center by a broad white trapezoid band with a yellow top, corresponding to the center of the dorsal fin.
|
|
It is known to grow to 120 cm in length and 15 kg in weight. The golden trevally schools as a juvenile, often closely following larger objects including sharks and jellyfish. The species uses its protractile jaws to suck out prey from the sand or reef, and consumes a variety of fish, crustaceans and molluscs. Spawning aggregations gather at night at different times of the year throughout its range.
|
|
Chromis limbata is greyish- brown in colour with a dark dorsal fin, anal fin and distal margin of the caudal fin, with its proximate part being whitish. When spawning, the male develops a slightly purple hue as its courtship colours. It has a large eye and a strongly protractile mouth which reaches the vertical from eye. There are three rows of small canine-like teeth on the jaws.
|
|
They borrow their name from the Greek oreos (mountain) and somas (backs) for the shape of their backs. They are very flattened vertically-laterally, with 5 to 8 rays in their dorsal fin, and 2 to 4 in the anal fin, and only 1 spine in the pelvic fins. The upper part of the mouth is protractile, allowing them to snatch up little fishes, copepods, amphypods, shrimp, krill, and small cephalopods, their main diet.
|
|
The phantom bannerfish is a small-sized fish that can reach a maximum length of 17 cm. Its body is compressed laterally, with the first rays of its dorsal fin stretched in short white feather-like filaments. The background color is white with light chocolate to dark areas and a brown face mask covering the mouth, eyes and reaches to the base of the first rays of the dorsal fin. Its stretched snout has a small terminal protractile mouth.
|
|
Kuhlia marginata has a moderately deep, compressed body with a moderately pointed head. The large, oblique mouth is protractile with a projecting lower jaw. The mouth extends to just in front of the pupil. It is silvery in colour and is normally marked with dark spots on the posterior, dorsal part of the body and these merge towards the head to form a horizontal dusky band or the dark pigment is concentrated on the edges of the scales.
|
|
Callionymus fasciatus, the banded dragonet, is a species of dragonet native to the Mediterranean Sea from the Gulf of Genoa to the western Aegean Sea. Also known from the southern and eastern Black Sea. It prefers sandy substrates where its diet consists of benthic invertebrates. Its body is scaleless, elongated and tapers posteriorly, it has a triangular head with a short snout which is shorter than the diameter of the eye and a terminal, protractile mouth.
|
|
The pectoral fins are positioned low, while the pelvic fins are along with the abdominal position. Prominent features of the shortnose sturgeon are the scutes, protractile tube-like mouth, and chemosensory barbels. Sturgeon tend to be long-lived, slow-maturing, and spawn infrequently, which have served the species well through evolutionary time but poorly to anthropogenic impacts like overharvesting, habitat loss, and degradation. Potential predators of the shortnose sturgeon include alligators, sharks, and other large fish such as catfish.
|
|
The southern pygmy perch has a body which is oblong and moderately compressed with a convex dorsal profile and a straight ventral profile. It has a large head the top of which bulges slightly and a blunt snout. It has a slightly oblique, terminal mouth which is protractile with the maxilla reaching to a level near the centre of the eye. There are thin bands of villiform teeth on the jaws and the roof of the mouth.
|
|
Equulites klunzingeri has a laterally compressed, oblong body, large eyes and a downward pointing, protractile mouth, which can project to the same length as the head and with jaws line with villiform teeth. It has a long dorsal fin, starting above the pelvic fins, which has seven spines, the second of which is very long, and 15-16 soft rays. The anal fin has three spines and 15-16 soft rays. The dorsal and anal fin rays are sheathed in a scaly membrane.
|
|
Chromis chromis has an oval and laterally compressed body with an noticeably large eye. Its mouth is strongly protractile, reaching to below the centre of the eye, with small canine-like teeth set in 3 rows on the jaws. The preoperculum is not serrated and the anterior gill arch has 30 slender gill rakers. There are 13-14 spines and 10-11 soft rays in the dorsal fin and in the anal fin has 11 spines and 10-12 soft rays.
|
|
A claw sheath from a cat All carnivorans have claws, which vary considerably in length and shape. Claws grow out of the third phalanges of the paws and are made of keratin. Many predatory mammals have protractile claws that can partially hide inside the animal's paw, especially the cat family, Felidae, almost all of whose members have fully protractible claws. Outside of the cat family, retractable claws are found only in certain species of the Viverridae (and the extinct Nimravidae).
|
|
Oreosoma atlanticum, also known as the ox-eyed oreo, is a species of oreo found in oceanic deep waters at depths of from . This species grows to a length of TL. This species is the only known member of its genus. Although adults are more similar in shape to other oreos, the juveniles have a weird plating/armor in their skin, which is spiked and probably makes them harder to eat for any hostile creature. Adults lack that plating, and, as other oreos, they have a protractile mouth and very large eyes, with small scales.
|
|
Equulites elongatus has an elongated body compared to its congeners but has the downward pointing, protractile mouth typical of the family Leiognathidae situated underneath the pointed snout. The single dorsal fin has 8 spines and 16 soft rays. the first spine is small, the subsequent three spines are larger and they then decrease sharply in size towards the caudal fin while the dorsal rays are nearly equal in length. The anal fin has 3 spines and 14 soft rays, with the first spine being rather small and forked.
|
|
The spotted dragonet is similar in shape to the common dragonet (Callionymus lyra) but it is smaller, growing to a total length of in males and in females. It has a broad, flattened head and body which is flat ventrally and convex dorsally and has a round cross-section posteriorly. The large eyes are situated quite close to each other on the top of the head which has a quite large, protractile mouth. The snout is a little shorter than the diamerter of the eye, being markedly shorter than that of the common dragonet.
|
|
The breast is naked ventrally to origin of the pelvic fins and the base of the pectoral fins, but is interrupted laterally by a moderate band of scales. The upper jaw is highly protractile, containing narrow bands of villiform teeth, which become obsolescent with age, as is the case in the lower jaw. It has a total of 24 to 29 gill rakers and 24 vertebrae. The body is a blue-green to yellow-green above, becoming silvery below, with adults having five or six dusky vertical bands which usually persist after death.
|
|
The eyed flounder is a flattened, disc-shaped fish which grows to a maximum length of but a more typical size is . As with other members of its family, it lies on its right side, and during its development, its right eye migrates to the left side of its head. The protractile mouth is large and the male fish has a spine on the snout and a bony lump in front of the lower eye. The eyes are large and prominent, the lower one being slightly nearer the snout than the upper one.
|
|
Carl L. Hubbs, a prominent ichthyologist and one of the first people to take an interest in them, coined the name after he observed their "playful" circling and tussling, which is actually the aggressive behavior of territorial males. In spite of their name, the cyprinodontids are not closely related to Cyprinidae, or carp family. They were formerly considered near allies of the pikes and their relatives, as they share some features: a flat head with protractile mouth beset with cardiform, villiform, or compressed, bi- or tricuspid teeth, generally large scales, and the absence of a well-developed lateral line. However, they are now generally assigned to the order Cyprinodontiformes.
|
|
Squalus is a genus of dogfish sharks in the family Squalidae. Commonly known as spurdogs, these sharks are characterized by smooth dorsal fin spines, teeth in upper and lower jaws similar in size, caudal peduncle with lateral keels; upper precaudal pit usually present, and caudal fin without subterminal notch. In spurdogs, the hyomandibula (the bone connecting the braincase to the jaws) is oriented at a right angle to the neurocranium, while in other sharks, the hyomandibula runs more parallel to the body. This led some to think that the upper jaw of Squalus would not be as protractile as the jaws of other sharks.
|
|
This behaviour extends to scuba divers, with one diver reporting a single young individual obsessively stationing itself in front of his face plate. The golden trevally is a diurnal foraging carnivore which, unlike other carangids, does not normally seek out individual prey items. The highly protractile mouth possessed by the species is used to form a tube to suck prey out of both reef- and algae-dominated habitats, as well as filtering organisms out of sandy substrates. In the latter case, both sand and any prey items are taken into the mouth and filtered through the gill rakers; sand is expelled, while small organisms are trapped and swallowed.
|
|
The snake pipefish has a very long, elongated and slender body which has a smooth skin and rounded cross-section and which is distinguished from other sympatric pipefishes by the near lack of bony rings. It has a long head, with a thin dark stripe in its sides, with a long, concave snout and a very small, protractile mouth. The long based dorsal fin has 37-47 short rays while the caudal fin is minute and there are no pectoral fins or anal fins. They are pale brown or yellowish-green in colour with each of the 28-31 rings on the body marked out by pale blue rings with dark margins.
|
|
A juvenile golden trevally displaying the prominent dark bands The golden trevally is a relatively large fish, growing to a maximum recorded size of 120 cm (47 in) in length and 15.0 kg in weight. It is similar to most other trevallies and jacks in having a compressed, oblong body, with the dorsal profile slightly more convex than the ventral profile, particularly anteriorly. The species' mouth is one of its defining features; the mouth is highly protractile and fleshy, with specimens greater than 90 mm having no teeth on the jaws, vomer or tongue. Smaller individuals have a series of small villiform teeth in both jaws. The dorsal fin is in two parts, the first with 7 spines, the second with 1 spine and 18 to 20 soft rays. The anal fin has 2 detached spines followed by 1 spine and 15 to 17 soft rays, while the pelvic fin consists of 1 spine and 19 to 20 soft rays.
|
|