Long Nosed Butterfly-fish

Long Nosed Butterfly-fish

This species has a unique ability of protruding its jaws. This allows it to move its jaws, undetected, close enough to its prey and suck it whole.Hence they are able to feed on elusive preys that live within coral reefs.The Yellow Longnose Butterflyfish, or Forceps Fish, can be found singly or in schools on reef flats and slopes of the Indo-Pacific region. It has a long snout that resembles a pair of needle nose pliers, for picking food out of crevices and between coral heads. The Longnose Butterflyfish has a yellow body. The color of its head is divided horizontally. The upper half of the head, at the very top of the mouth through the top of the head is black. The lower half is white. The dorsal spines are long and jagged. It is a fairly large Butterflyfish in the wild, but remains a medium-sized fish in the home aquarium.

Pterois/Lionfish

Commonly known as the Lionfish, Pterois are venomous fish. There are 18 needle like projections on the top of the pterois that are used as a defence mechanism. The venom is extremely painful to humans and could cause nausea and breathing difficulties but they are often not fatal.  They rely purely on their fast reaction and body camouflage to feed on their prey. They live in the Indo-pacific regions and can grow up to 40cm long while the average is only about 30cm for a fully grown pterois. Pterois have stripes on their scales to camouflage with the coral and to hide in rock cracks to be able to ambush the prey!

Mudskipper

Mud-skippers are completely amphibious fish, a fish that can use their pectoral fins to walk on land. Being amphibious, they are uniquely adapted to intertidal  habitats. Compared with fully aquatic gobies, these fish present a range of peculiar behavioural and physiological adaptations to an amphibious lifestyle.

These adaptations that allow them to move effectively on land as well as in the water. The ability to breathe through their skin and the lining of their mouth  and throat . This is only possible when the mudskipper is wet, so the mudskipper s required to keep themselves dry.This mode of breathing, similar to that of the amphibians. Another important adaptation that aids breathing while out of water are their enlarged gill chambers, where they retain a bubble of air. These large gill chambers close tightly when the fish is above water, keeping the gills moist, and allowing them to function.

The Porcupine Puffer-fish.

The Puffer fish are the second-most poisonous vertebrates in the world, after the golden poison frog. they contain toxin (called tetrodotoxin)in their internal organs that can be 1200 times stronger than cyanide, and one puffer fish has enough toxin to kill 30 men.

An interesting defense mechanism the porcupine fish has is the ability to inflate and swell up their bodies by swallowing water or air, becoming rounder. They do this to prevent predators from eating them if they don't have a wide enough jaw span. If that doesn't work, the puffer-fish has sharp spines, which expand outward when puffed up.

However, puffing up for this porcupine puffer fish is equivalent to a heart attack in a human and is extreme stress and 95% of the time leads to death at an early age, so it can only puff up 3-5 times in its whole life.

FUN FACT:

Did you know that scientists have discovered dolphins actually get 'high' off the puffer-fish toxins?

It has been observed that adolescent dolphins will tend to find a puffer fish and chew on it 'gently', then pass it onto its peers to chew on as well.
Apparently in doing so the dolphins will intake a small amount of the toxins, producing a narcotic effect,which then leads the young dolphins to start acting 'high', like swimming around stupidly in a daze, mesmerized by their own reflections in the water, much resembling the effects that alcohol has on an average human.

Which is to say, dolphins get drunk on puffer-fish toxins.

{click here to read a full article and here to watch a video on this phenomenon}

Palefin Unicorn fish

Palefin unicornfish/long-nose Unicornfish

Mainly active in daytime, the Palefin unicornfish,also known as the long-nosed unicornfish, roam in small groups feeding on algae. can grow to around 51-61 cm. The horn-like appendage between their eyes begins growing when a young fish reaches about 13 cm in length, and tends to be a little bigger on males. It has plates on its caudal peduncle offensively and defensively to display its dominance and against predators respectively. 

They prefer water temperatures of 24 to 26 degrees Celsius. the scientific name for the unicorn fish is Naso brevirostris, it can live up to about 15 years. it is a herbivore and feeds mainly on leafy brown algae. it gets hunted by larger marine animals. they are commonly found in coral reefs, patch reef, and rocky tropical areas of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Red Sea.