Fish Anatomy

This study help to detect that Fish are

susceptible to some diseases: Eye Disorders ,Fin
Disorders ,Gill Disorders, Locomotor Disorders
and Skin Disorders & Changes in Color .
Fish are (cold blooded animals) aquatic
vertebrates with fins for appendages. They
breathe by means of gills.

Some species move from the sea to fresh

water to reproduce (anadramous fish as
salamonids).other species move from fresh
water to the sea ( catadromous fish as eel).
 Classification of fish
Kingdom; Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Sub phylum: Vertebrata
Class: Agnatha (jawless fish) as: hagfish, lamprey.

Class:Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) as: shark,

skate and rays.

Class:Osteichthyes (teleost or bony fish) as: ray

finned fish, lung fish.
 External Anatomy
-Note the fishes may have very different in:

•Body shape
•Head , Mouth size and position
• Fins and scale
 Body shape

Fish has dark grey dorsally and white or yellowish white

ventrally (counter-shading) a defensive adaptation that
reduces the chance of the fish being seen by a potential
enemy from above or below, and may reduce the chance that
potential prey seen in time to escape.
 Fins
-Fins responsible for movement, stabilize the
fish in water. It consists of membranous sheets
of tissue supported by either soft rays or hard
spines or both.
-Fishes have two types of fins, paired and
unpaired.
A. Unpaired Fins B. Paired Fins
-Dorsal fin -Pectoral fins
-Caudal fin
-Pelvic fins
-Anal fin
 Dorsal Fins
it lied on the back of fish and used for balance
caudal Fins It helps fish to swim and change its direction
it rounded or truncated tail fish move slowly

forked tail which called faster swimming fish

Pectoral Fin

it acts like an airplane's wings

to provide the lift needed to
keep the fish from sinking.
 Pelvic Fins
It located at sub abdominal region cranial to vent or on either
side of the cloacal opening in shark which characterized in the
male by presence of pair of claspers on either side of the
cloacal aperture. They are different in males and females as in
shark (male has clasper) and cat fish (male has urogenital
papilla)
Some types of fast-swimming fish have a
horizontal just forward of the tail fin as a lateral
ridge caudal keel on the caudal peduncle that
provides stability and support to the caudal fin.
Finlets are small fins, generally behind the dorsal
and anal fins as in mackerel, tuna.
The scales (translucent plate of dermal origin that
project into the epidermis, forming a protective
environmental barrier for the fish.
1- cycloid scale small oval shaped with smooth borders
and growth ring as: in Trout ‫سمك السلمون‬
2- ctenoid scales the ridges or spines that cover on one
edge found on many fusiform fishes.
3- placoid scales (dermal denticles), in shark and ray, a
tiny tooth like structure in the skin give shark’s skin a
smooth appearance that feels like sand paper.
 Head
•The mouth is located at the anterior end of the
head terminal as ( tilapia).
•The long lower jaw and opening toward the top of
head that occur in fish feed near the surface as (
superior) As (perch (‫قشر البياض‬

•In many fishes, feed on the bottom, the mouth is

located on the ventral side of the head. Such a
mouth is sub terminal or ventral.( shark, mugil)
Terminal mouth
Superior or up pointed mouth
Ventral mouth
The position and size of mouth can be a good indicator of the
specie's feeding habits,
•Fish with large mouths eat large food as another small fish.
• fish with small mouth eat small food as crustacean, molluscs
and zooplankton.
•Some fish have barbells as tactile organs as in catfish and
common carp(four pair of barbells pair nasal, pair
maxillary and two pair of chin barbells).
A) Teeth:
the types of teeth varies according shape and its position in the
various fish..

1. -Locate the teeth on both the upper (maxilla and

premaxilla) and lower jaw (mandible).
2. Locate teeth on the roof of the mouth (vomerine and palatine) and on the
tongue on the floor of the oral cavity.
3. The pharyngeal teeth are derived from
pharyngeal arches back in the
throat, i.e., (the fifth gill arch in
fishes in some species ( as mugil) is
modified in that it has cone-like
structures contained pharyngeal
teeth).
The dorsal pharyngeal teeth known (suprapharyngeal teeth) that
formed saw toothed piler on dorsal wall of pharynx and the ventral
pharyngeal teeth or (infrapharyngeal teeth) on the pharyngeal floor
in catfish ‫ قرموط‬, perch ‫ قشر بياض‬and meager fish ‫ لوت‬.

‫سمك لوت‬

‫سمك القرموط‬
Sensory organs:
The lateral line system: it consists of two canals one on each side
running at the length of fish’s body (begins behind gill cover till the
tail) appear in skin as a row of tiny holes . it can detect vibration
movement in the fluid .The fish uses its line system to locate prey
and potential predators.
The electricity as the ampullae of Lorenzini is small vesicles and pores that form
part of an extensive subcutaneous sensory network system. it found around the
head of the shark and ray.
 Internal Anatomy
1.Skeletal system
2. Respiratory system
3. Digestive system
4. Reproductive system( male and female)
 I. The Fish skeleton
Fish skeleton either bony or cartilaginous composed of:
-Axial skeleton which included skull (neurocranium and Viscerocranium)
and Vertebral column
-Appendicular skeleton which consisted ( fins ,Pectoral girdle, pelvic
girdles.
The shark endoskeleton is formed of the cartilage, due to:
more flexible than bone. This allows the shark to move
quicker, and make sharp turns, Cartilage is lighter than bone
and helps keep the shark from sinking
 skull
(neurocranium and Viscerocranium)
 II. The respiratory system
A. The Gills:
-The operculum of bony fish is the hard bony flap covering
&protecting of gills, While in the cartilaginous fish had five
to seven external gill slits located on each side as an
opening behind the eye.
Bony fish has four pairs of gills arches
Each gill arch contains gill rakers and gill filaments.
-Each gill arch contains gill rakers
and gill filaments.
1. The gill rakers on the anterior
side. they prevent the fish’s food
from escaping out through the
gills (Fishes which eat smaller
prey have longer, thinner and
more numerous gill, Fishes which
eat large prey such as other fishes
and molluscs have short, widely
spaced gill rakers).
2.Two rows of gill filaments along it posterior
convex surface of gill arch which are the sites for
gas exchange where oxygen is absorbed and
carbon dioxide is removed
B. The swim bladder or gas bladder Or air filled sac
organ Or accessory respiratory organs):

It situated in dorsal surface of the body cavity in most bony

fish between the digestive system and the kidneys.

It has role in respiration beside to buoyancy.

N.B: swim bladder was absent in fat swimming fish, shark and
fish in deep ocean.

Type of swim bladder:

1. The physostomous type.
2. The physoclistic type (closed type).
The physostomous type: open with oesophagus
by pneumatic duct as common carp and trout.
-The physoclistic type
(closed) that mean without
connection to alimentary
canal in ray finned fish as
mugil fish. This type are
supplied by densely spaced
capillaries, vascular rete,
( rete mirabile)
C. The lung: in lungfish.
In catfish has air breathing dendretic organs. They are composed
of two main parts small and large part which consisted of numerous
folds as well as spongy like structures that located above
(caudodorsal) to the gills in the special cavity of the skull called
suprabranchial chamber and nearly filled by respiratory trees.
‫يقوم الحوت بإدخال الهواء لداخل رئتيه عن طريق األنف عبارة عن‬
‫فتحة يتم إدخال الهواء منها و إخراجه من األنف‪ .‬تخرج الحيتان عندما‬
‫تتنفس إلى القرب من سطح البحار و المحيطات وتبقى فوق السّطح‬
‫ألخذ كمية كافية من الهواء ‪ ،‬حيث تطفو بنصف جسمها فتتنفس الهواء‬
‫و عندما تغوص داخل البحر يقوم الحوت بإغالق فتحة األنف ثم ينزل‬
‫تحت البحر ‪ ،‬و يبقى مدة ساعة داخل البحر و تتم عملية ال ّتنفس بشكل‬
‫طبيعي عند تنفس الهواء بالكامل ‪ ،‬و عندما يتجمع الهواء الفاسد يخرج‬
‫على سطح البحر مرة أخرى و يفتح ثقب أنفه مرة أخرى ليخرج‬
‫الهواء الفاسد من رئتيه‪،‬‬
 Coelomic Cavity and Viscera
-The coelomic cavity of fishes is divided into a large peritoneal, or
abdominal cavity and a much smaller pericardial cavity. There is no
pleural cavity, even in fishes with lungs

-The transverse septum was in the form of thin membranous

sheets that separated the pericardial cavity which enclosed the
heart from the abdominal cavity, which occupied by the digestive
and reproductive structures.
 III. The digestive system
The digestive tract of fish begins at the mouth, behind
which open into the buccal cavity. On the jaws are many
teeth differ in type and shape according to fish species. On
the floor of the mouth is the immovable tongue. Posterior
to the mouth is the pharynx that connecting to the
esophagus then to stomach, intestine with numerous
pyloric caeca.

Fishes are classified according feeding habits into:

herbivores fish which have long and coiled intestine as
common carp, carnivores fish have the shorter gut with
straight intestine and some these fish has pyloric caecae as
barracuda and omnivores fish which their gut length is
intermediate between the first and second one as mugil
fish.
Fish stomachs:
The fish are classified as stomach and stomachless fish.
-The predator and carnivores fish have stomach.
-The shape of stomach may be elongated, I, J,U, Y shape,
sac shaped.

-The true stomach is divided internally into cardiac and

pyloric
-some herbivores fish have no stomachs but has GIT
as musculo- menbranous tube; they have accessory
adaptations, such as grinding teeth that crush the food
finely so that it is easily absorbed.
-In mugil, the stomach consisted of two portions; a
simple wide tube called the proventriculus and a thick
muscular walls which described as a gizzard (having
muscular stomach for grinding food).
The intestine is more difficult to differentiate
between small intestine &large intestine.
It formed a narrow long coiled tube which
extended to the length of the abdominal cavity
and arranged to form loops with a uniform
diameter in all its length then gradually
decreased towards the terminal portion as
rectum which emptied in anus at the cranial
aspect of the vent.
The spiral intestine or valvular intestine
(the valve occur when intestine twisted about
its longitudinal axis ) in shark.

the rectal gland (the salt gland, cecal gland, anal gland, and supra-
anal gland a finger-like body that located dorsal to the colon. this gland
supplements the kidney by excreting a fluid with high salt
concentration( divalent ions). ( osmoregulation)
The Pyloric caecae are fingerlike
pouches, it represented as the initial part of
the intestine.

-The shape , length and number varies

according to species, age.

-Pyloric caecae may have a digestive

and/or absorptive function.
 The liver
•Anatomically the shape of this organ is
extremely variable.

•The liver should be easy to locate in the

anterior portion of the body cavity.

•The liver may lobed or simple (not lobed).

-The reproductive system in some fish is hermaphrodite (single
individual produce sperm & egg). Either fish has both sperm
&egg producing organ at same time (self fertilization).

-fish born one sex and change sex during course of life
(Seabream ‫ )حصاان البرار‬born male then change to female. ‫سامة‬
‫الدنيس‬
•the sex of a fish cannot be determined by external
examination except in shark, ray and catfish.
•The sex of shark and ray can determine by
presence of the claspers in male considered as the
copulatory organ that formed from the medial edge
of the pelvic fins.
•catfish due to presence of urogenital papilla in male
The fishes have pair of bilateral gonad which
suspended from dorsal portion of body cavity by
mesentries closely associated with kidney and
below the swim bladder except some fish has
single gonad at left side as keel jaw needle fish.
‫سمك القرموط‬
Testes were usually white in color in young (immature). Mature individuals
had testes with a brown color. The right and left testes were separated
cranially and fused together to form Y-shaped structure at the caudal
end of the abdominal cavity, it that terminated as a sperm duct (vas
deferens) which extended from both testis and merged together to form a
tube which exited as genital orifice to open in the caudal aspect of the
vent.
 Female reproductive system
Fertilization may be external (oviparous fish) or internal as in
(ovoviviparous or viviparous fish)

Female reproductive organs comprise the ovaries, oviduct so the

relations between ovaries with oviduct to transport ova are
distinguished into:
1. cytovarian type
2. semicytovarian type
3. gymnovarian type
In cytovarian type: the ovary is connected to oviduct
and both oviducts join with each other to open directly
into genital pore.
Mature ovaries were loaded with eggs that contained in
an ovarian sac. The caudal end of both ovaries were
fused together to form oviducts which opened at the
genital pore in the caudal aspect of the vent as in mugil
fish. Most bony fish are egg laying fish so don’t need
any special copulatory organs. In Most bony fish
In semicytovarian type;
Oviduct is partially or completely degeneration so
ova are shed into coelomic cavity then pass funnel
shaped to oviduct then carried to genital pore.
In gymnovarian type:
The ova are ovulate into coelomic cavity and
carried to oviduct by cilia. In salmon fish
‫سمك القرموط‬
the ovaries occupied most of the fish body cavity so their
digestive tracts shrank for allowing the reproductive organs to
fill up their abdomens in this season
 -When spawning the ovaries can constitute up to
70% of the fish’s total body weight. Ovaries can vary in
color from pink, yellow or orange and usually have a
tubular look. Mature ovaries are loaded with eggs
contained in a clear sac.

The spawning season of grey

mullet in Egypt takes place
during the period from June to
December with the peak
extending from August to
October.
The external opening of bony fish
was the vent formed by an
invagination of the external surface
of the body toward the intestine
ended with anus at cranial aspect of
the vent and the genital pores
opened caudally.