Eva laughed and said, "What piranha? Don't you know? This is Oceanic lungfish, one of the most endangered species in Oceania. How come they appear here?"
"Lungfish?" Wang Bo asked, "Is that the kind of fish with lungs? The kind of fish that can live out of water for a long time?"
He had heard of this fish, but had never seen it when he was in China. This fish was born hundreds of millions of years ago and is a freshwater fish similar to the coelacanth.
Although the name is fish, it is actually similar to amphibians in many aspects. For example, in terms of soft tissue structure, development, physiology and behavior, many traits are close to those of 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. It can breathe through its gills when it is in the water, but it has a special swim bladder that allows it to breathe after leaving the water. Breathe the air."
"There are very few of this kind of Oceanic lungfish now. It is said that there are less than 1,000 of them in Australia, and they are all under protection. I didn't expect that there are still this kind of fish in New Zealand."
The little Loli asked with a sad face: "Aren't they piranhas? They bit me."
Eva kissed her little hand and said: "You provoked them first, Del. Don't think that freshwater fish are not aggressive. Lungfish have special teeth, which are like two rows of large thick plates, with the tips of their teeth facing forward. , which can be used to smash the carapace of underwater animals for consumption.”
Wang Bo chuckled and said, "Do you know what this is called, Dai'er? This means that the lungfish bites people when it's in a hurry."
Seeing the little Loli being unhappy, Eva combed her hair and said softly: "You know, this kind of fish is very interesting. They mostly live in the northern desert of Australia. When the dry season comes, the ponds where they live will change. into a mud puddle, at which point they burrow into the mud puddle and begin to secrete a mucus that hardens into a protective cocoon-like coating."
"This mucus can maintain a certain humidity and allow air to enter. At the same time, it uses its own muscles and fat as nutrients to survive, and reduces its metabolic rate to one-sixtieth of its original value, which is about less than 2% of the normal rate. %. Then, do you know what they will do?"
After hearing her explain this knowledge, the little Loli became interested and asked curiously: "What are you doing?"
Eva shrugged and said, "Think about what I told you, such as the umbrella lizards. What do they do in the summer?"
"Xia Mian!" Little Loli said happily.
Eva smiled and said: "Yes, they can magically go into aestivation. Isn't it fun?"
"Can they survive without water?"
"I have lived for a long time. I read the news that in a remote rural village in Tunisia, Africa, a lungfish was found digging holes in the mud to escape drought. As a result, it was made into mud bricks. It relies on moisture from the mud when it rains. The water vapor in the bricks came to survive. Four years later, rain and time continued to corrode the bricks, and the mud bricks were destroyed. The lungfish took advantage of a heavy rain to escape." Eva recounted 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 seen it live, but they are indeed the fish with the strongest survival ability after leaving the water. They even can't stay in the water all the time and have to escape every once in a while. Breathe air on the surface.”
Indeed, Wang Bo and Xiao Loli waited on the shore for a while, and two lungfish crawled into the grass next to the stream.
These fish have very strong pelvic fins. No wonder they are a bit like reptiles. When you look at them crawling on land, they look exactly like reptiles.
Eva said: "We should call New Zealand's Species Conservation Service, these lungfish are an amazing find."
Wang Bo shook his head: "Telling them may not be a good thing. What will they do? Take away the lungfish and change their environment. Then what? These lungfish may not like those environments and may eventually die."
Eva smiled and said: "How is that possible? They are experts in lungfish research and 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, how fat they are."
Indeed, due to the nourishment of the spiritual spring water, these lungfish are plump and plump, with round bodies and shiny scales. After climbing ashore, their pleats will even shine when the sun shines on them.
"I think it's better for them to stay here. Maybe they belong here. They may have aestivated somewhere before, but now they have a suitable living environment, and then they wake up, just like the African lungfish that escaped from the mud bricks. Same."
"That's a barramundi." Eva corrected, "But what you said makes sense. If they like this place, then they can survive here. Maybe they will be able to reproduce in the future, and our creek can become a A holy place to watch barramundi. But we have to protect them, what if someone catches them and eats them?"
"Can lungfish be eaten?" Little Loli asked curiously.
"Of course, you see, they are like eels, they have no bones, just tender flesh. In fact, they are found on the dining table. This is another story, do you want to hear it?" Eva asked.
The little loli nodded like a chicken pecking at rice: "Listen to it."
"That was a long time ago, in the 19th century. Because the flesh of this lungfish is pink, the indigenous people in Oceania often regarded it as a kind of salmon after catching it. Salmon is a great food fish. Right? So barramundi became people’s meal.”
“Then one day, while eating dinner, Kreft, the curator of the Australian Museum, suddenly noticed that the salmon on the plate had a lung. He dissected and studied the fish, and then discovered that they were not salmon, but It’s a completely new species.”
"But they were really delicious, and Kreft still ate them, and of course there were still plenty of barramundi in Oceania at that time."
Listening to Eva telling stories to little Lolita, Wang Bo praised: "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 very embarrassing if the children ask me questions?"
The little Loli strolled along the stream, ran back and said, "Come on, sister, I found some more lungfish."
Wang Bo followed him to see. In a shallow bay, some fish similar to lungfish were swimming at the bottom of the river. These fish were also more than ten centimeters long and had brown bodies, but they did not have as developed fins as lungfish. The fish's whiskers are also not that developed. (.)