General Fish Questions – Chapter 28.1

  1. What are the four chordate characteristics?
  1. a. What does the vertebral column replace?

b. When does the vertebral column appear?

c. What does it protect?

  1. What is cartilage? What is it used for? What is it replaced by in most vertebrates?

Common Fish Characteristics

  1. Jaws –
  2. Why was the evolution of jaws in fishes important?
  1. Explain how they are used in feeding.
  1. Fins –
  2. What is a fin and how, specifically, do fish use them?
  1. Why is it an advantage to have paired fins?
  1. Scales – fill in the chart below for each type of scale

Name / Drawing / Composition / Example Animal
  1. Gills –
  2. What are gills made of?
  1. Explain how fish get oxygen out of the water.
  1. Why are the gills made up of very thin tissues? (Think about the last one – you can figure it out!)
  1. What is an operculum?
  1. Circulation –

a. Explain the route blood takes as it flows through the fish’s body.

b. How many chambers does the fish heart have? What are they?

  1. Feeding and Digestion –Draw a diagram of the fish’s digestive system. Label the parts and give their function.
  1. Excretion –
  2. What is the main functional unit if the kidney?
  1. What does a nephron do?
  1. Explain how this is used in freshwater and saltwater fish to maintain their water level in tissues.
  1. Nervous System– Fill in the chart below on the parts of the nervous system and their functions

Name / Function
Cerebellum
Olfactory Receptors
Optic Lobes
Cerebrum
Medulla Oblongata
Lateral Line System
  1. Reproduction – Majority of fish reproduce through ______fertilization. The fish release their ______in the water near each other. This is called ______. These fish produce ______of eggs in a single season in hopes that some will survive. The adult fish do not guard or care for the eggs or offspring. The exception to this is the ______. He guards the fertilized eggs until they hatch.

Sharks reproduce through ______fertilization. Fertilized

eggs may be laid and then the young develop in these eggs outside of the shark’s body. Others may develop inside the female body, hatch and then leave the female shark’s body. Regardless the shark still hatches from an egg.

  1. Movement – Complete the chart for movement

Name / Function
Mucous Coating
Fins
Swim Bladder
Alt. Contraction of Muscles

Classes of Fishes – Chapter 28.2 – in some texts is called the Class Agnatha

  1. Class Myxini – Hagfishes are ______, ______fishes that do not have ______, paired ______or a bony skeleton. Hagfish retain their notochord throughout their life so they do not develop a ______. They do have gills.

Name / Function
Habitat
Food
Vision
Chemical Sense
Feeding
Slime
  1. Class Cephalaspidomorphi - Lamprey are jawless, eel-shaped fish that lack ______, ______or a bony skeleton. Retain a notochord throughout life, have gills and other fish characteristics. How do they feed?

3. Class Chondrichthyes -

a. Skeleton made of ______for flexibility and ______

______for strength.

  1. Sharks –

Name / Function/Structure
Teeth
Shape
Chemical Sense
Lateral Line
Vision
Skin
  1. Skates and Rays – Explain how their bodies are adapted for living on the bottom of the sea.
  1. Class Osteichthyes – two groups of bony fish
  2. Ray-finned fish – subclass Actinopterygii

1.Skeleton –

2.Scales –

3.Operculum –

4.Swim Bladder –

5.Fin supporting structure –

6.Examples –

  1. Lobe-finned fish – subclass Sarcopterygii - ______species exist
  1. Flexible but Muscular Fins –
  2. Joints –
  3. Lungs -
  4. Drought Survival –
  5. What is significant about the coelacanth?
  1. What is significant about the early tetrapods?

Ecology of Fish

  1. Why are fish good bioindicators of the environmental health in an aquatic ecosystem?