The living habits and nutritional value of Guangdong Manchuria and Wutang Snakehead

Bostrichthys sinensis belongs to the order Perciformes, the suborder Bostrichthys, the family Bostrichthys, and the genus Bostrichthys. Commonly known as: Manyu. English name: Chinese black sleeper.

The body is long and stout, with the front part nearly cylindrical and the back part flattened laterally. The head is quite broad, slightly flat, and the muzzle is wide and round. The mouth is wide, terminal, slightly slanted, and the lower jaw is slightly protruding, extending backward to vertically below the posterior edge of the eye. The teeth are villous and uniform in size; there are about 10 rows in the upper and lower jaws respectively; the vomerine teeth are distributed in a semi-elliptical shape. The nasal tube of the anterior nostril is slender and hangs from the upper lip, and the posterior nasal tube is thick and long. There are no hard spines on the posterior edge of the preopercular bone. The whole body is covered with fine scales, which are more or less degenerated on the snout and top of the head. The scales on the cheeks are very small. The scales on the whole body are not arranged neatly, and the scales on the tail peduncle are the largest. There are 2 dorsal fins, far apart; the pectoral fins are large and round; the pelvic fins are on the chest, separated from the left and right; the caudal fin is round. The body is dark brown and the belly is light. There are 12 vaguely discernible dark brown horizontal diagonal stripes on the upper part of the body; there is a large black eye-shaped spot on the upper end of the base of the tail fin, and the periphery of the spot is white. There is a narrow pale longitudinal band in the middle of the first dorsal fin and a wide dark brown spot at the base; the second dorsal fin has 4 dark longitudinal bands. The caudal fin has 3-4 horizontal stripes near the base; the edges of the dorsal fin, anal fin and caudal fin all have white edges; the pectoral fin is gray-black and the pelvic fin is gray-yellow.

It lives in brackish water in offshore estuaries and can enter fresh water. It feeds mainly on shrimps, but also eats small fish and aquatic insects. Distributed in the middle and lower reaches of rivers and estuaries along the southeast coast. The individuals are not large, and the common individuals are 10-15 centimeters in length. They have thick bodies, delicious meat, and rich nutrition. They have always been regarded as high-quality products.

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