The first thing that comes to mind for most people when they hear the word "shark" is horror stories about careless swimmers bitten in half or bloody footage from the movie Jaws. In fact, among the huge family of sharks, there are very few really dangerous ones. Rather, sharks become victims of people who hunt them in huge number for meat, liver, fat, fins and cartilage.

Currently, scientists have counted about 460 species of sharks, the species of which are so diverse that the appearance of many "family members" absolutely does not coincide with our idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthese predators.

What are the reasons for such a diversity of sharks that have common ancestors? Main - different conditions life, the variety of shapes and sizes of sharks is associated with their habitat and lifestyle.

Cartilaginous fish Chondrichthyes are the most ancient among fish. The ancestors of sharks lived in the Devonian seas 410 million years BC. With a few exceptions, all cartilaginous fish, and sharks, including, live in salt water.

Dwarfs and giants

The length of the smallest shark found in the Philippine Islands is only 15 cm. The Cuban marten, light-tailed, pygmy prickly, is slightly larger - from 25 to 35 cm.

The giant among sharks is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), its length is 14 meters, its weight is 10 tons, while it "sits on a diet" of small plankton, which it extracts from sea water.

The largest whale shark was caught on November 11, 1949 in Pakistan, near Baba Island, near Karachi, and was almost 13 m long, 7 m in girth of the thickest part of the body and weighed about 20 tons.

Deep-sea exploration has unearthed a fossilized tooth of a megalodon, an extinct shark that was twice the size of today's great white shark.

The whale shark does not natural enemies, she has an absolutely peaceful disposition, oceanographers managed to walk along the back of a giant and even look into her mouth.

The smallest and most big sharks not dangerous to people. The greatest threat is represented by predators from 3 to 6 meters, which can easily cope with a person of average height.

Sharks of the Far Eastern Seas

In the Far Eastern seas of Russia, in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan, more than 12 species of sharks have been found, including those dangerous to humans. In the Sea of ​​​​Japan live katran (spiny shark), salmon, hammerhead, gray shortfin, mako, fox, Japanese carpet and mustel, large White shark and other types. The mako and the great white shark are the most dangerous for humans.

Spiny sharks often appear off the coast of Kamchatka in summer. Outwardly, they resemble a spindle, this body shape allows you to develop great speed. Spiny sharks got their name because of the presence of sharp spikes in front of the dorsal fins. These sharks are small in size, on average, about a meter, and weighing up to 10 kg. Spiny sharks live for a long time, 30-40 years.

Like many cartilaginous fish, spiny sharks are the object of active fishing. Until the middle of the last century, they were caught in huge numbers to produce vitamin A from shark liver, then they learned to synthesize vitamin A artificially, and interest in sharks became less.

IN Lately prickly shark began to be caught for eating, its meat can be boiled, fried, canned, smoked. Shark fin soup is popular in Chinese and other Asian cuisines.

Restoration of the joints

The most great popularity waited for sharks when in the middle of the last century there were many articles that shark cartilage cures cancer. Unfortunately, the miracle did not happen; shark cartilage has not yet become a panacea for cancer of sharks. But numerous studies have confirmed the high. Osteoarthritis(international name - osteoarthritis) is one of the five main causes of temporary disability, and arthrosis knee joint(gonarthrosis) and hip joint(coxarthrosis) often lead to disability in people in the prime of life and years, every movement of the diseased joint is difficult, the quality of life drops sharply. This occurs when the cartilaginous surfaces of the joint are abraded and there is a lack of lubricating synovial fluid.

Osteoarthritis affects the cartilage, adjacent bone, and other structures of the joint (ligaments, joint capsule, and adjacent muscles and tendons). Majority medicines aimed at pain relief, but does not give the effect of restoring joint function. The main thing in the treatment of joint diseases is to stop the destruction of cartilage, reduce inflammation, normalize metabolic processes in tissues and, of course, reduce pain in the affected joint. Chondroprotectors, substances containing components of cartilage tissue, are called to help him function normally.

For this purpose, experts tried to use the cartilage tissue of different animals, but it turned out that the cartilage of marine hydrobionts, including sharks, contains useful substances in the optimal combination and is absorbed by the body faster. Moreover, the assimilation of not natural cartilage, but processed with the help of modern method, enzymatic hydrolysis. Studies have shown that shark cartilage contains many various forms chondroitin sulfates that nourish the human joints and slow down the destruction of the joints. Combination of enzymatic hydrolyzate of shark cartilage and other marine life Far Eastern scientists used to create a product. It is effective both in the treatment of osteoarthritis and in the prevention of this serious disease.

Don't wait until your joints start to hurt, strengthen and support them in advance!

In the class of fish, as in other classes of animals, vertebrates and invertebrates, there are species characterized by different sizes. Among the fish there are real dwarfs and monstrous giants.

In the Philippine Islands, between South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, there is a tiny lake goby mystichthys, whose length is 1-1.5 centimeters. This goby is found in large flocks. The inhabitants of the islands catch it and eat it. The mystichthys goby is considered the smallest animal of all vertebrates in the world.

There are dwarf fish in European waters, in particular in Soviet ones. In the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas, Berg's goby is found, the length of which barely reaches three centimeters. This is the smallest vertebrate animal within the USSR. In the figure, the goby is shown almost 5 times enlarged.

In our waters, marine and fresh, there are many fish 5-10 centimeters in size. Baikal goby stone sculpin usually has a length of 8 centimeters, and only occasionally come across specimens up to 14 centimeters long. This fish most of the time swims among the stones, here it feeds, and here it breeds.

Small size and stickleback fish. It is very abundant in lakes, rivers and brackish coastal areas of the seas. The Aral nine-spined stickleback is only 5-6 centimeters long. There are so many sticklebacks in our water bodies that it could become commercial fish. In Finland and other Baltic countries, stickleback is caught and processed to produce fat for technical purposes and flour for livestock and poultry feed.

Some herrings, minnows, bleaks, verkhovka, gudgeon, plucked fish, etc. should also be attributed to small fish species. Pinchovka got its Russian name for the sharp thorns located near the eyes; With these spines, the fish is quite sensitively pricked (pinched).

In stories about animals special interest cause large individuals. We are surprised big sizes fish, and we try to learn more about their life.

Some cartilaginous fish, sharks should be recognized as real giants. In the northern regions Atlantic Ocean, partly in the Barents Sea, there is a gigantic shark. Its length is over 15 meters. Despite such a gigantic size, this shark is reputed to be a rather peaceful animal. It feeds mainly on small fish and other small marine organisms, but on occasion it also eats the corpses of large marine animals, even whales. When hunting for a giant shark, accidents can occur, as it has such huge force that with the blows of the tail is capable of breaking the boat.

Even larger sharks are found in tropical seas.

There are also giants among our sturgeon (cartilaginous fish). Fishermen caught beluga weighing more than one and a half tons. Belugas weighing one ton and are currently no exception.

At strong winds from the south, the water in the coastal sections of the Volga rises so much that it floods large expanses of the delta. These shallow waters are visited by fish, including beluga. With a rapid decline in water, clumsy beluga sometimes remain in drying lowlands. Once I was an eyewitness of how a happy Astrakhan, what is called with bare hands I took a live beluga weighing more than 500 kilograms almost on land, in which there was a lot of top quality caviar.

Amur beluga - Kaluga weigh over a ton. At the sight of such giants, one is surprised not so much by the length of their body as by their weight.

Sturgeon and stellate sturgeon are also large fish. The Baltic Sea sturgeon reaches the largest size; its weight is up to 160 kilograms. There are cases when sturgeons were caught weighing up to 280 kilograms with a body length of three and a half meters.

In June 1930, a female sturgeon 265 centimeters long and weighing 128 kilograms was caught in the southern part of Lake Ladoga. A rare specimen was skinned and transferred to the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences (in Leningrad) for making a stuffed animal. Fishermen from Ladoga told us that another large sturgeon was caught in the Volkhov Bay almost at the same time - a male, somewhat smaller than the female. This fact is worth mentioning: it can be assumed that a pair of sturgeon was heading to the Volkhov River for spawning. The fishermen, who did not want to miss such prey, did not think that these fish could give more than a million fry (sturgeons). I will also talk about the Baltic sturgeon in other parts of the book, this fish is worth taking special care of.

In the rivers of tropical America lives one of the largest bony fish- arapaima. Its length is up to 4 meters, weight is 150-200 kilograms. They hunt it with rods and arrows. Arapaima meat is considered delicious.

Aral catfish often weighs up to 2 centners. Even larger catfish (up to 3 centners) come across in the Dnieper. The Caspian catfish weighs over 160 kilograms. The largest length of the catfish is 5 meters.

You have probably heard about the huge pikes weighing 50-80 kilograms, hunting for waterfowl and animals caught in the water. In the stories, the pike is represented as a greedy freshwater shark. There is a lot of fantastic in this, but a lot of it is fair. Indeed, occasionally there are pikes weighing about 50 kilograms and more than 1.5 meters long.

In the Amur, among the cyprinids, which are considered to be medium-sized fish, there are specimens reaching two meters in length and 40 kilograms in weight.

The well-known cod of the North Atlantic usually has a body length of 50-70 centimeters and a weight of 4-7 kilograms. But in 1940, a cod 169 centimeters long and weighing 40 kilograms was caught in the Barents Sea.

Who would have guessed that among the herring fish, which we consider small, there are also giants! Such is the Atlantic tarpoon. Its length is up to 2 meters, weight is up to 50 kilograms. This fish is found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, sometimes it enters rivers. For tarpoons, both commercial fishermen and angler athletes hunt. Who is not flattered to fish out such a "herring"! Interestingly, when this fish is dragged out of the water, it performs such a trick - it jumps with a hook to a height of 2-3 meters above the water.

Take a look at the drawing. What a monster the hammerhead shark looks like! Russian name this animal is quite consistent with the shape of its body. Hammerhead fish, reaching a length of 3-4 meters, is considered one of the most terrible ocean predators, dangerous for humans. The hammerhead fish is found in tropical seas, but is also found off the coast of Europe, keeping mainly near the bottom.

These huge fish can be found in sea ​​depths- although you would not wish to meet them, perhaps, to anyone.
The Cambodian comes face to face with giant fish barb on the Tonle Sap River near Phnom Penh.

Fishermen from Kmbodia catch about 9 adult giant barbs on Tonle Sap every year, making this region one of the last places on earth to see these spectacular freshwater fish.

A man swims in an aquarium with an adult giant arapaima in Manaus, Brazil. This giant is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. Some individuals reach a length of more than 3 meters and weigh over 180 kg. Behind last years due to intensive hunting, Arapaim have become rare throughout the world.

Tourists walk past stuffed paddlefish on display at the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute in Jingzhou, China. This endangered species lives in the Yangtze River in China and is a contender for the title of the largest freshwater fish in the world.

A pair of sturgeons swim in the aquarium in Beijing, China. 5-meter fish up to half a ton in weight are also among the largest freshwater and largest sturgeons on Earth.

A boy poses with a giant barb on the Tonle Sap River. The largest barb ever caught by fishermen on this river reached 3 meters in length.

Man holding a newborn giant stingray

Giant rays like this one are found in the Mekong River in Cambodia.

A Cambodian and a giant catfish on the Tonle Sap River. Fishermen caught this specimen, which weighed about 230 kg, as by-catch in a stationary mesh bag. He was later released.

Among fish There are giants and dwarfs. There are especially many giants among sharks. Cetaceans reach 15 meters in length and sometimes weigh up to 20 tons. There are giants among stingrays. The manta ray lives in the tropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. It often reaches a length of 6 meters, and its weight exceeds 4 tons.

Whale shark

Fishermen call the manta the sea devil. And not in vain. There are cases when a huge stingray, caught on a hook, jumped out of the water and, falling into a boat with fishermen, drowned it!

“Once whalers while hunting for whales in the waters of the Southern Hemisphere harpooned sea ​​stingray of rare size, - writes V. Sabunaev in the book "Entertaining Ichthyology". “His skin alone weighed 500 kilograms. It was sent to the Zoological Museum of Moscow University and is still on display there.”

But not only in the vastness of the oceans there are giant fish. Let's take a look at the Caspian Sea, which, unfortunately, has become significantly impoverished. Everyone knows the Caspian Beluga. After sharks and gigantic rays, this is the most big fish. In 1926, a beluga weighing 1,228 kilograms was caught near Biryuchaya Spit, with 246 kilos of one caviar in it, but in 1827 a beluga weighing 1,440 kilograms was caught - the largest ever caught.

Beluga too predatory fish. It feeds on roach and herring, but sometimes large fish and young seals are found in its stomach. They hunted the beluga with nets, but they also caught it with ropes and even on a piece of white oilcloth wrapped around a hook. Today, the number of beluga is practically reduced to zero.

modern beluga

Almost the same size reaches the closest Amur relative of the beluga - kaluga, a thunderstorm of Far Eastern salmon.

IN warm waters Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, tuna is found in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. This big fish- more than 3 meters long and weighing up to 600 kilograms. These schooling pelagic fish cover long distances in search of food. Tunas and herring sharks are the only fish that can maintain their body temperature above ambient.

Tuna

These active predators have a spindle-shaped elongated body. On each side of the caudal peduncle lies a large leathery keel. The dorsal fin is sickle-shaped and is ideal for fast and long swimming. Yellowfin tuna can reach speeds of up to 75 km/h.

Of the freshwater fish, the largest is our European catfish. Once a catfish weighing 21 pounds (336 kilograms) was caught in the Dnieper near Smolensk.

catfish

Slightly inferior in size to catfish freshwater fish South America arapaima ( Arapaima gigas). Each scale is almost the size of a saucer for jam. Arapaima meat is highly valued by the local population. They hunt for it with a spear or a gun, less often they catch it with a bait.

Arapaima in the aquarium. Photo zoogalaktika.ru

The moon-fish reaches almost a ton, although it does not exceed 2.5 meters in length. This is a "stump" fish. They usually say about such people: that along, then across. Moonfish can be found in all oceans.

moon fish

Everyone knows flat as a plate fish flounder. Usually they are small in size. But there are flounders and more impressive! The halibut flounder is found in the Barents Sea. A single mature halibut can serve as a meal for at least five hundred people. After all, such a flounder weighs 200 or even 300 kilograms, and its length is 4-6 meters. Not every store will fit such a “fish” in its entirety!

Halibut

The belt-fish, or, as it is also called, the oar king, looks completely different. The body of this fish is ribbon-shaped, it weighs about 100 kilograms and reaches a length of 6-7 meters. The homeland of the belt-fish is the Atlantic and Indian oceans. She is called the herring king because she often moves along with a school of herring, and on her head she has a corolla resembling a crown.

Herring king

Pike are also large. They reach 2.5 meters in length and weigh 60-70 kilograms. The largest specimens are found in the reservoirs of the North and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper.

Weighty freshwater salmon of Siberia - taimen. Among them sometimes come across 70-kilogram fish.

Taimen

Of the carp fish, the recognized heavyweight is carp. Even in the recent past, huge carps were found in the tributaries of the Dnieper.

Ordinary herring, natural or with a side dish, you can eat whole. But it is difficult to cope with the Caspian crease alone - this herring is quite enough for six.

And what can you say about a herring that even 100 people cannot handle? It turns out there is one. Atlantic tarpon reaches 2 meters in length, and this "herring" weighs 40-50 kilograms.

Tarpon

Along with the giants in the world of fish, there are many dwarfs.

Who does not know small freshwater fish: minnow, bleak, char, top. Even less - stickleback, mustard, gambusia.

minnows

IN South-East Asia there is a futunio fish (barbus phutunio), the length of which does not exceed 2 centimeters (in aquariums). In nature, they are slightly larger.

barbus futunio

No more than her male heterandria or formosa (Heterandria formosa). In some countries, this fish, like the gambusia, is used to fight malaria.

Tiny fish are also found among gobies. Berg's Caspian goby (Hyrcanogobius bergi), named after the Soviet ichthyologist who discovered it, is never more than 2 centimeters long. Even smaller is the pandaka or pygmy goby. Its length is only 8-9 millimeters. This world's smallest fish lives in the Philippine Islands.

Pandaka in the water and on the palm of a person (right)

The difference between the largest and smallest fish is simply amazing. If you put a shark weighing 20 tons on one bowl of huge scales, then on the other, in order to balance the scales, you would need to put 10 million pandak gobies!

Both large and small fish are short and wide and, conversely, long and narrow. Of our inhabitants fresh water the broadest of all fish is golden crucian carp: in large crucian carp, the width is almost equal to the length. Wide fish: bream, flounder, discus, moonfish.

Discus

The widest fish from the bristletooth family (Chaetodontidae) - scythe - lives in Ceylon. She has a body width, together with fins, almost 3 times the length.

Fish from the bristletooth family

Thin fish: eel, needle-fish, garfish, oarfish. The thinnest of them - Nemichthys (Nemichthys) - lives in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The length of this thread fish is 70 times its width. With a body length of 1.5 meters, the width is only 2 centimeters!

Nemichthys pelagic eel

Fish of the same species at the same age are both large and small. A pike that has hatched from an egg can weigh both 500 and 50 grams by autumn. At the age of ten, a pike sometimes weighs 10, and sometimes only 1 kilogram.

What explains such a huge difference? The amount of food in the pond? Nutrition, of course, is important, but not only in it. Everything in nature is interconnected. Let's say there's plenty of food in a pond, but the water is either too warm or too cold. Fish lose their appetite, and without appetite, food is not for the future. The nutritional value of the feed also matters: from one fish grow quickly, from another they almost do not gain weight. But back to the pike.

Before us is the Karelian "lamba" - a small lake among peat bogs. The water in the lamba is brown, sour, there is not enough oxygen, and there is very little fish - the usual food for pike - in the lake. The hunting period is also small: summer lasts only four months. It is not surprising that a newborn pike in such a lake grows slowly and weighs no more than 50 grams in autumn, and at the age of ten it barely reaches a kilogram.

Pike

Now let's see how the pike feels in some southern pond where carps are bred. There is more than enough food in such a pond. Summer is long. A young pike by autumn often weighs 400-500 grams. However, at an older age, the growth of pike in small ponds slows down dramatically. Either the “exercise” is insufficient, or the running water is spoiled by a large accumulation of fish. It is rare to find large pike in such reservoirs.

Another thing is the Dnieper estuaries. There are so many fish here figurative expression fishermen, at least put the oar upright. The warmth is almost all year round. There is enough space for "physical education" - swim in plenty. The water is clean and flowing. And in the lower reaches of the Dnieper there are pikes weighing up to 70 kilograms.

21.08.2010

In mountain streams deep rivers and lakes, in the oceans, off the coast and at great depths, fish live. The variety of these chordate aquatic animals is great appearance, size and lifestyle. About 20,000 species of fish are known, of which about 1,400 species live within the USSR.

Among the fish there are giants and dwarfs. The largest living fish is the whale shark, its body is up to 15 m long. Individual specimens of whale sharks can be even larger - up to 20 m long or even more. The mass of a shark 11-12 m long reaches 12-14 tons. The whale shark has a powerful body, a relatively small head with tiny eyes, and a crescent-shaped tail fin.

Whale shark for a long time known only to sailors. For the first time, zoologists met this giant in 1828, when off the coast South Africa a whale shark 4.5 m long was harpooned.

The whale shark lives in all oceans except the Arctic. It is especially common near the Philippine Islands, Southern California and near Cuba. She prefers to swim in the surface layers of water. Apparently, this is due to her way of eating. There are many stories about the whale shark, often embellished with fiction about a terrible sea monster. In fact, this timid animal is not at all dangerous to humans. Scuba divers approach her, touch her with their hands and even sit on top of her.

The shark feeds on small fish, crustaceans and squid. It reproduces by laying eggs enclosed in horn capsules.

Also true giants giant shark with a maximum body length of up to 15 m and a weight of up to 9 tons, which only slightly smaller than the whale shark. Slowly swimming near the surface of the water, the giant shark filters about 1500 m3 of water per hour. The stomach of a giant shark is large and can hold about a ton of food, consisting mainly of planktonic crustaceans.

Big and small fish.

Fossil shark jaws.

For humans, the giant shark is safe. However, there are many cases of attacks on humans by other sharks - tiger, white, blue, sand, hammerhead sharks and some others.

Real giants are also found among stingrays. In tropical waters, a manta ray often lives up to 6 m long, and weighing up to 4 tons. There are cases when a harpooned stingray jumped out of the water and, having fallen on a boat with fishermen, drowned it. Once, Soviet whalers caught a sea stingray of rare size: its skin weighed 500 kg. She was taken to the Zoological Museum of Moscow University.

Although modern sharks are usually large animals, their ancestors, who lived more than 60 million years ago, were even larger (judging by the fossil remains). The fossil shark carcharadon had a huge size. It is believed that her body was more than 30 m long, and several people could fit in her mouth.

And what giant fish live in fresh waters?

In the Amazon and other South American rivers, a very large arapaima fish is found, according to some data - up to 2.4 m long and weighing up to 90 kg, and according to others - up to 4.6 m long and weighing 200 kg. However, in recent years, arapaima longer than 2 m is a rarity. By the time of breeding, she swims to shallow places with clean water and sandy bottom. Here, with the help of fins, arapaima digs a small hole and throws eggs there. For 5 years, it grows up to 1.5 m long. It is caught with a bait or killed with arrows from a bow. The hunt of local residents for such a giant is always very lively and requires strength and skill.

Ordinary, or European, catfish, inhabiting the rivers of Europe and Asia (except for those flowing into the Arctic Ocean), is up to 5 m long and weighs up to 300 kg. Catfish don't avoid brackish water, feeds in the estuaries of the Dnieper, in the Azov, Aral and Caspian Seas, but spawns in fresh waters.

In the Caspian, Black and Seas of Azov there is a huge migratory beluga fish. At the age of 15 years, it can be up to 4.2 m long, and weighing up to 1 ton. There were beluga up to 9 long and weighing up to 2 tons.

Beluga is a long-lived fish, reaching a hundred years of age. She spawns in rivers. In the sea, the beluga feeds mainly on fish (gobies, herring, sprats).

Interestingly, the beluga forms hybrid forms with other sturgeons. Under the guidance of Professor Nikolai Ivanovich Nikolyukia, with the help of artificial insemination, viable hybrids of the beluga crossed with the sterlet have recently been obtained. The hybrid received the name "bester" - from the initial syllables of the names of these two fish. Such hybrids began to grow in the pond farm - Donrybkombinat. Now this fish is grown in Ukraine, Georgia, near Moscow, Belarus, the Baltic States and Central Asia.