- published: 02 Jul 2012
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The bichirs are a family, Polypteridae, of archaic-looking ray-finned fishes, the sole family in the order Polypteriformes.
All species occur in freshwater habitats in tropical Africa and the Nile River system, mainly swampy, shallow floodplains and estuaries.
Bichirs are elongated fish with a unique, subdivided series of dorsal finlets which varies in number from seven to eighteen, instead of a single dorsal fin. Each of the dorsal finlets have bifid (doubleedged) tips, and are the only fins with spines, the rest of the fins being composed of soft rays. The body is covered in thick, bonelike and trapezoidal ganoid scales. Their jaw structure more closely resembles that of the tetrapods than that of the teleost fishes. Bichirs have a number of other primitive characteristics, including fleshy pectoral fins superficially similar to those of lobe-finned fishes. They also have a pair of slit-like spiracles used to exhale air, two gular plates and double ventral lungs (the left lung smaller than the right), which allow them to obtain oxygen from the air when in poorly oxygenated waters, by swimming quickly to the surface and back to the bottom. They are nocturnal, and feed on small vertebrates, crustaceans, and insects. Four pairs of gill arches are present.
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