What does loach represent among the people?

Misgurnus anguillicaudatus belongs to Misgurnus. Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, known as "ginseng in water", is distributed all over southern China, but it is not common in the north, but it can also be seen everywhere. It can be harvested all year round, most in summer. After the loach is caught, it can be eaten raw or dried. Misgurnus anguillicaudatus lives in lakes and swamps. It is very small, only three or four inches long. It is round and short, with small scales under its skin, blue and black in color, and covered with its own mucus, which is too greasy to hold. It is a kind of fish with high nutritional value. It is different from other fish in appearance, shape and living habits. This is a special kind of loach. The body is slender and the front section is slightly cylindrical. The back side is flat, the abdomen is round, the head is small, the mouth is small, and the lower part is horseshoe-shaped. The eyes are small and there are no thorns under them. It must be five pairs. Scales are tiny and round and buried under the skin. The back and sides of the body are grayish black, and there are many small black spots all over the body. There are also many black spots on the head and fins. The spots on the dorsal fin and caudal fin membrane are arranged in rows, and there is an obvious black spot at the base of caudal stalk. Other fins are grayish white. Misgurnus anguillicaudatus is widely distributed in China, Japan, North Korea, Russia and India along the coast of Asia, and it can be eaten or used as medicine.

Living habits

Appearance of loach

Small bottom fish. Living in static or slow-flowing water at the bottom of silt, it has strong adaptability and can live in an environment rich in humus. When the water lacks oxygen, it can breathe in the intestine, and when the water dries up, it can dive into the mud and lurk. Send all kinds of small animals to eat. In order to lay eggs in batches, the breeding period is mainly from May to June. The fertilized eggs attach to aquatic plants and hatch. The largest individual can be as long as 300 mm, with excellent meat quality, which is one of the exported aquatic products.

Misgurnus anguillicaudatus likes to inhabit the bottom of still water and often appears on the mud surface rich in plant residues at the bottom of lakes, ponds, ditches and rice fields, which has strong adaptability to the environment. The domestic water temperature is 10-30℃, and the optimum water temperature is 25-27℃, so it should be warm-water fish. When the water temperature rises to 30℃, the loach dives into the mud to spend the summer. In winter, when the water temperature drops below 5℃, drill into the mud for wintering at a depth of 20-30 cm.

Misgurnus anguillicaudatus not only can breathe through gills and skin, but also has special intestinal breathing function. When the weather is sultry or the sludge, humus and other substances at the bottom of the pond rot, resulting in severe hypoxia, the loach can also jump out of the water surface or vertically rise to the water surface, directly swallow the air through its mouth, and the intestinal wall assists breathing. When it turns its head and dives slowly, the exhaust gas is discharged from the anus. At this time, the loach in the whole water body surfaced to inhale, one after another, so it was called "climate fish" by western Europeans. When the winter is cold and the water body dries up, the loach burrows into the soil, keeps the skin dry by a small amount of water, and sustains life by intestinal breathing. The next year, when the water rises, I will come out again.

Misgurnus anguillicaudatus survives for a long time after leaving water, because its tolerance to low dissolved oxygen is much higher than that of ordinary fish. In the dry barrel, the juvenile loach fish with a total length of 4-5 cm can survive 1 hour, and the adult fish with a total length of 12 cm can survive for 6 hours, and can still move normally after being put back into the water. Misgurnus anguillicaudatus usually comes out at night to prey on plankton, aquatic insects, crustaceans, aquatic higher plant debris and algae, and sometimes it also eats underwater humus or sludge. Misgurnus anguillicaudatus matures at the age of 2 winter and begins to breed in April every year (water temperature is 65438 08℃). It lays eggs in shallow grass with a water depth of less than 30 cm, and the eggs laid are attached to aquatic plants or submerged hay. Hatched larvae often live in scattered life and do not form groups.