Life habits and morphological characteristics of small red-eye fish (Allosaurus carp)

Cyprinus (Mesocyprinus) yilongensis belongs to the order Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae, Cyprin subfamily, and Cyprinus genus. Commonly known as: red-eyed sharp-billed fish, small red-eyed fish. English name: Yilong lake carp.

Endangerment level: extinct.

The body shape is similar to that of a carp. Head tapered. Tip of the kiss. The mouth is in the shape of a horseshoe at the end of the mouth, the cleft is slightly oblique, and the upper jaw is slightly longer than the lower jaw. The lips are thin. There are 2 pairs of barbels, well developed, and the birch barbels are longer than the muzzle barbels. Big eyes. The scales are larger, with 37-39 lateral line scales. Both the dorsal and anal fins have hard spines with fine serrations on the trailing edge. The starting point of the dorsal fin is behind the starting point of the pelvic fin, and the outer edge is straight; the pectoral and pelvic fins are both long. The crowns of the second and third teeth in the main row of hypopharyngeal teeth have a groove. The head and back of the body are gray and black or light green, the sides of the body are silvery white with yellow, and the abdomen is milky white; the upper part of the eyeball is orange-red; the odd fins are gray and the even fins are yellowish.

They mostly inhabit deep grassless areas in lakes. Staple food plankton. The egg-laying period is from April to May, and the eggs are laid on grass. The individual is not large, with a body length of about 100-130 mm.

The Allosaurus carp is a species endemic to my country and is distributed in Yilong Lake, Yunnan. Historically, it was a common species in Yilong Lake. In 1952 and 1971, the river was opened and released twice, causing the water level in the lake to drop by more than 4 meters, the water surface was greatly reduced, a large area of shoals, gravel fields and lake bays on the lakeshore dried up, and fish habitats and breeding places were seriously damaged. destroy. There were two consecutive years of drought in 1979 and 1980. In April 1981, an unprecedented drought in history occurred in which the entire lake dried up for more than 20 days, causing the Yilong Lake's specialty fish, the Allosaurus carp, to become extinct.

animal tags：