''Abbottina rivularis'', also known as the Chinese false gudgeon or the Amur false gudgeon, is a species of

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

in the family

Gobionidae Gobioninae is a monophyletic family of Eurasian cyprinoid fishes. This is a species rich clade which, as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae was divided into five tribes: Gobionini, Pseudogobionini, Hemibarbini, Coreiini, and Sarcocheilichthyini. T ...

, the gudgeons. It is native to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, but it has been introduced to the

Mekong River Basin The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth-longest river and the third-longest in Asia with an estimated length of and a drainage area of , discharging of water ...

and is also known from rivers in

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

.Froese, R. and D. Pauly. (Eds.
''Abbottina rivularis''.
FishBase. 2011.

Description

''A. rivularis'' has eight dark spots along its

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

and many black dots on its caudal fin.When maturity is reached, this species' total length is about , however the maximum recorded length for ''A. rivularis'' was recorded to be . Huo, T.B., Z.F. Jiang, A. Karjan, Z.C. Wang, F.J. Tang and H.X. Yu, 2012. Length- weight relationships of 16 fish species from the Tarim River, China. J. Appl. Ichthyol. 28:152-153.

Distribution and Habitat

''A. rivularis'' lives in rivers and lakes, and it is often found in converted lowland aquatic habitat, such as

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

ditches and ponds associated with rice paddies. In the slow moving,

lentic A lake ecosystem or lacustrine ecosystem includes biotic (living) plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (non-living) physical and chemical interactions. Lake ecosystems are a prime example of lentic ecosystems (''lentic'' ref ...

rivers and lakes that it inhabits, it prefers sandy or muddy bottoms. Native to China and Japan, this species has been introduced into the Mekong river basin, and has also been recorded Tedzhen River of Turkmenistan.

Biology

''A. rivularis'' is host to a number of recorded

parasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The en ...

, including the

monogenea Monogeneans, members of the class Monogenea, are a group of ectoparasitic flatworms commonly found on the skin, gills, or fins of fish. They have a direct lifecycle and do not require an intermediate host. Adults are hermaphrodites, meaning they ...

flatworm Platyhelminthes (from the Greek language, Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") is a Phylum (biology), phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, Segmentation (biology), ...

s ''

Gyrodactylus rivularae ''Gyrodactylus'' is a genus of parasitic flatworms in the family Gyrodactylidae. Species Species listed in the World Register of Marine Species The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an autho ...

'' and '' G. gobioninum'', several

trematode Trematoda is a Class (biology), class of flatworms known as trematodes, and commonly as flukes. They are obligate parasite, obligate Endoparasites, internal parasites with a complex biological life cycle, life cycle requiring at least two Host ( ...

flatworms of the genus '' Diplostomum'', and the

tapeworm Eucestoda, commonly referred to as tapeworms, is the larger of the two subclasses of flatworms in the class Cestoda (the other subclass being Cestodaria). Larvae have six posterior hooks on the scolex (head), in contrast to the ten-hooked Ce ...

'' Khawia abbottinae''.Xi, B. W., et al. (2013)
''Khawia abbottinae'' sp. n.(Cestoda: Caryophyllidea) from the Chinese false gudgeon ''Abbottina rivularis'' (Cyprinidae: Gobioninae) in China: morphological and molecular data.
''Folia Parasitologica'' 60(2), 141-48. An egg laying species ''A. rivularis,'' reproduces by laying eggs into a nest. Males construct the nest, which ranges from 12 to in diameter, at a depth from 8 to . The male also broods over the spawn, which might consist of 1,700 eggs or more. Berg, L.S., 1964. Freshwater fishes of the U.S.S.R. and adjacent countries. volume 2, 4th edition. Israel Program for Scientific Translations Ltd, Jerusalem. (Russian version published 1949).

Description

Distribution and Habitat

Biology

References

Further reading