599 585. Teacher Eva (1/5)

Chapter 599 585. Teacher Eva (15)

Eva laughed and said, "What piranha? Don't you know? This is Oceania lungfish, one of the most endangered species in Oceania. Why do they appear here?"

"Lungfish?" Wang Bo asked, "The fish with lungs? The fish that can live for a long time out of water?"

He had heard of this kind of fish, but he had never seen it when he was in China. This kind of fish was born hundreds of millions of years ago, and it is a freshwater fish similar to coelacanth.

Although it is called a fish, it is actually similar to amphibians in many aspects. For example, in terms of soft tissue structure, development, physiology and behavior, it has many traits that are similar to living amphibians but different from other living fish.

Eva nodded with a smile, and introduced them: "Yes, that's them. This is a special fish that can breathe with gills when in the water, but it has a special swim bladder that allows it to breathe after leaving the water. Breathe the air."

"This kind of Oceanic lungfish is very rare now. It is said that only Australia has less than a thousand, all of which are under protection. I didn't expect this kind of fish to still exist in New Zealand."

Little Lolita asked with a sad face, "Aren't they piranhas? They bit me."

Eva kissed her little hand and said, "You provoked them first, Dale. Don't think that freshwater fish are not aggressive. Lungfish have special teeth, like two rows of large plates, with their tips pointing forward. , can be used to smash the carapaces of underwater animals to eat."

Wang Bo chuckled and said, "Do you know what it's called Dai'er? It's called a lungfish that bites when it's in a hurry."

Seeing that little Lolita was unhappy, Eva combed her hair and said softly: "You know, this kind of fish is very interesting. Most of them live in the northern desert of Australia. When the dry season comes, the ponds where they live will change. When they make mud pits, they burrow in the mud pits and start secreting a mucus that hardens into a cocoon-like protective membrane."

"The mucus can maintain a certain humidity and allow air to enter. At the same time, it uses its own muscle and fat as nutrients to survive, and reduces the metabolic rate to one sixtieth of the original, which is less than the normal 2 %. Then, do you know what they do?"

Hearing her explanation of these knowledge, the little loli became interested and asked curiously: "What are you doing?"

Eva shrugged and said, "Think about it, what I told you, such as fringed lizards, what do they do in summer?"

"Aestivation!" Little Lolita said happily.

Eva smiled and said, "Yes, they will perform aestivation miraculously, isn't it fun?"

"Can they survive without water?"

"It's been a long time. I read the news that in a remote rural village in Tunisia, Africa, lungfish were found digging holes in the mud to avoid drought. As a result, they were made into mud bricks. It relied on rain to moisten the mud. The water vapor in the bricks survived, and after 4 years, the rain and time continued to erode, the mud bricks were destroyed, and the lungfish escaped in a heavy rain." Eva told some stories.

Wang Bo didn't believe it: "This is fake, right, this kind of fish can't really live in mud bricks for four years."

Eva shook her head and smiled: "Who knows, we haven't been to the scene, but they are indeed the fish with the strongest ability to survive out of the water, and they can't even stay in the water all the time, they have to get out of the water every once in a while." The surface breathes air."

Indeed, Wang Bo and Xiao Luoli waited on the bank for a while, and two lungfish crawled into the grass beside the stream one after another.

These fish have very strong ventral fins. No wonder they are a bit like reptiles. When they crawl on land, they look like reptiles.

"We should have called the New Zealand Species Conservation Service, these lungfishes are a fantastic find," Eva said.

Wang Bo shook his head: "It may not be a good thing to tell them. What will they do? Take away the lungfish and change their environment, and then? These lungfish may not like that environment, and they may eventually die."

Eva laughed and said, "How come, they are experts in lungfish research, and they will only change them to a better environment, an environment more suitable for survival."

Wang Bo still shook his head and said, "If the facts are as optimistic as you say, why are these lungfish almost extinct in New Zealand? I think they live well here. Look, they are so fat."

Indeed, due to the nourishment of the Lingquan spring water, these lungfishes are so plump, with round bodies and shiny fish scales, and even when they climb ashore, they will even fold and glow when exposed to the sun.

"I think it's better for them to stay here. Maybe they belong here. They may have hibernated there before, and now they have a suitable living environment. Then they wake up, just like the African lungfish that escaped from the mud bricks Same."

"That's a Douz lungfish." Eva corrected, "But what you said makes sense, if they like this place, then they can live in this place, maybe they can multiply in the future, our small river can become A sacred place to watch lungfish. But, we have to protect them, what if someone catches them and eats them?"

"Can lungfish be eaten?" Little Lolita asked curiously.

"Of course, you see they're like eels, no bones, just tender flesh, and they're actually found on the dinner table. That's another story, do you want to hear it?" Eva asked.

Little Lolita nodded like a chicken pecking at rice: "Listen."

"It was a long time ago, in the 19th century, because the flesh of this lungfish was pink, so the aborigines in Oceania often caught it as a kind of salmon, and salmon is a great food fish Right? So lungfish became a meal on people's plates."

"Then one day, while eating dinner, Kraft, the curator of the Australian Museum, suddenly noticed that the salmon on the plate had a lung. He dissected and studied the fish, only then discovered that they were not salmon, but It's an entirely new species."

"But they were delicious, and Kraft still ate them, and of course there were plenty of Oceanic lungfish back then."

Listening to Eva telling stories to little Lolita, Wang Bo exclaimed, "You know so much."

Eva said with a smile: "It's nothing. I'm a teacher. Of course, I have to know a lot of knowledge. Otherwise, wouldn't it be embarrassing for the children to ask me?"

Little Loli strolled along the stream, ran back and said, "Come on, sister, I found some more lungfish."

Wang Bo followed him to see that in a shallow water bay, some fishes similar to lungfish were swimming at the bottom of the river. These fish were also more than ten centimeters long, and their bodies were brownish yellow, but they did not have the well-developed fins like lungfish. The whiskers are also not so well developed.