Living habits and nutritional value of climate fish loach

Loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) belongs to the order Cypriniformes, family Misgurnus, subfamily Misgurnus, and genus Misgurnus. Commonly known as: loach, loach. English name: Oriental weatherfish.

The body is slender, with the front end slightly rounded and the back end flattened laterally. The snout is prominent and the eyes are small; the mouth is small, downward, and horseshoe-shaped. The lips are soft and well developed, with fine wrinkles and small protrusions. There are no fine scales on the head; the body scales are extremely small and buried under the skin, with about 150 lateral line scales; the body surface is rich in mucus. The dorsal fin has no hard spines, and its starting point is slightly in front of the starting point of the pelvic fin; the caudal fin is rounded, with narrow and flat skin folds above and below the caudal peduncle. The body is gray and black with many small black spots. The body color often varies depending on the living environment.

Loach likes to inhabit the bottom layer of still water, and often appears in the silt surface layer rich in plant debris at the bottom of lakes, ponds, ditches and paddy fields. It has strong adaptability to the environment. The loach can not only breathe through its gills and skin, but also has a special intestinal respiratory function; when the weather is muggy or the silt, humus and other substances at the bottom of the pond are rotten, causing severe hypoxia, the loach can also jump out of the water or rise vertically to the water. It swallows air directly through its mouth, and the intestinal wall assists in breathing. When it turns its head and dives slowly, the waste gas is discharged through the anus. At this time, all the loaches in the water body rise to the surface to inhale, one after another, so Western Europeans call it a "climate fish". When the winter is cold and the water dries up, the loach burrows into the soil, relying on a small amount of water to keep its skin from drying out, and relies entirely on intestinal respiration to maintain life. When the water rises the next year, they go out again. Because loach's ability to tolerate low dissolved oxygen is much higher than that of ordinary fish, it can survive longer out of water. In a dry bucket, juvenile loach fish with a total length of 4-5 cm can survive for 1 hour, while adult fish with a total length of 12 cm can survive for 6 hours, and they can still move normally when they are returned to the water. Loaches mostly come out at night to feed on plankton, aquatic insects, crustaceans, detritus of higher aquatic plants, algae, etc. Sometimes they also ingest underwater humus or mud. Loach matures in the second winter and begins to reproduce in April every year (water temperature is 18°C). It lays eggs in shallow water grass with a water depth of less than 30 centimeters. The eggs it produces adhere to aquatic plants or submerged dry grass. The hatched larvae often live scattered and do not form groups.

Except for the western plateau area, this fish grows everywhere from south to north in my country.

Although loaches are small in size, they are widely distributed and can be found in any waters and can be caught all year round. It has strong vitality, rich resources, and is also a nutritious small aquatic product. The meat of loach is tender and delicious. The protein content per 100 grams of edible part is as high as 18.4-22.6 grams, which is higher than that of ordinary fish. It also contains 2.8-2.9 grams of fat, 100-117 kcal of calories, 51-459 mg of calcium, and 154-154 mg of phosphorus. 243 mg, iron 2.7-3.0 mg, and vitamins B1, B2 and niacin. Eating more loaches has the effect of curing diseases. Loach has a sweet and flat taste. "Introduction to Medicine" states that it can "tonify the middle and stop diarrhea". "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that loach has the effect of warming and replenishing qi; it has certain medicinal effects on quenching thirst and sobering up, promoting urination, aphrodisiac, and reducing hemorrhoids. It has good curative effect on hepatitis, night sweats in children, hemorrhoids, itchy skin, bruises, finger boils, impotence, ascites, mastitis and other diseases. There are three main ways to use it for medicinal purposes:

1. Put an appropriate amount of loach in clean water, add a few drops of vegetable oil, remove the sewage every day, replace it with clean water, wait until the muddy water and dirt in the intestines are discharged, wash it and put it into a pot, dry it over a slow fire, grind it into powder and set aside. Take 5 grams each time with warm boiled water, three times a month. This method is effective for both acute and chronic hepatitis; it can also treat jaundice, protect the liver, and promote the retraction of the swollen liver and spleen.

2. Use an appropriate amount of live loach, process it according to the above method, and cook it with an equal amount of fresh shrimp for consumption, which can treat impotence caused by kidney deficiency.

3. Take 200 grams of live loach each time, fry it in peanut oil until it turns yellow, add an appropriate amount of water and salt, cook it and eat it. It has the effects of tonifying the spleen, strengthening the kidneys and strengthening the stomach.

Loach mucus can be taken internally to treat urinary obstruction and hot stranguria; external use can treat white tinea and lacquer sores (skin diseases caused by lacquer poisoning).

animal tags：