Article No.

Fish

Fish are the biggest group of vertebrates. The major reason why they have
been classified in a different class is because of their distinguishing character i.e.
they can only live in water, which is also why they are called aquatic animals. Other
distinguishing traits of fishes is that they have fins and gills. They are limbless
aquatic vertebrates. Fishes are cold blooded animals except the Tuna family and
Mackerel shark family.
There are three living classes of fish: the primitive jawless fishes called
Agnatha; the cartilaginous fishes called Chondrichthyes; and Osteichthyes which are
known as the bony fishes. There are about 24,000 species of fish known to men. In
spite of diversity, we can easily recognize a fish because all of them live in water
throughout their life. Beside this, all the fish with jaws have fins. But fossils of many
jawless fish have been found that do seem to have fins. They are biggest source of
food carnivores. On the basis of skeleton, fishes are divided into two categories;
cartilaginous fishes and bony fishes.
The largest fish is the Whale shark (Rhincodon typus) and it is found in
tropical oceans. The world's smallest fish is Paedocypris progenetica from Indonesia,
with mature females measuring 7.9 mm (0.31 in).
58% of fish are marine, 41% live in fresh water, while 1% are euryhaline
which can live in fresh water as well as in salt water. Euryhaline are mostly found in
tropical regions. Most marine species live near to coasts. They are called coastal
fish. Among them, 44% live in less than 200m of water, near the coast. Only 13% of

all fish species live exclusively in deep water in oceans. They include Lantern-fish,
Cookiecutter shark, Bristlemouths, Anglerfish, Viperfish, and some species of
eelpout. Living in water imposes some constraints on them that they must live
within - the properties of water limit the number of morphological, physiological,
and ecological options for fishes. Different fishes can tolerate water temperatures
ranging from freezing to over 100F (38C).