The swim bladder, gas bladder, fish maw, or air bladder is an internal gas-filled organ in bony fish (but not cartilaginous fish [1] ) that functions to modulate buoyancy, and thus allowing the fish to stay at desired water depth without having to maintain lift via swimming, which expends more energy. [2] Also, the dorsal position of the swim bladder means that the expansion of the bladder moves the center of mass downwards, allowing it to act as a stabilizing agent in some species. Additionally, the swim bladder functions as a resonating chamber, to produce or receive sound.
The swim bladder is evolutionarily homologous to the lungs of tetrapods and lungfish, and some ray-finned fish such as bowfins have also evolved similar respiratory functions in their swim bladders. Charles Darwin remarked upon this in On the Origin of Species , [3] and reasoned that the lung in air-breathing vertebrates had derived from a more primitive swim bladder as a specialized form of enteral respiration.
In the embryonic stages, some species, such as redlip blenny, [4] have lost the swim bladder again, mostly bottom dwellers like the weather fish. Other fish — like the opah and the pomfret — use their pectoral fins to swim and balance the weight of the head to keep a horizontal position. The normally bottom-dwelling sea robin can use their pectoral fins to produce lift while swimming like cartilaginous fish do.
The gas/tissue interface at the swim bladder produces a strong reflection of sound, which is used by sonar equipment to find fish.
Cartilaginous fish, such as sharks and rays, do not have swim bladders. Some of them can control their depth only by swimming (using dynamic lift); others store up lipids with density less than that of seawater to produce a neutral or near-neutral buoyancy, which cannot be readily changed with depth.
The swim bladder normally consists of two gas-filled sacs located in the dorsal portion of the fish, although in a few primitive species, there is only a single sac. It has flexible walls that contract or expand according to the ambient pressure. The walls of the bladder contain very few blood vessels and are lined with guanine crystals, which make them impermeable to gases. By adjusting the gas pressurising organ using the gas gland or oval window, the fish can obtain neutral buoyancy and ascend and descend to a large range of depths. Due to the dorsal position it gives the fish lateral stability.
In physostomous swim bladders, a connection is retained between the swim bladder and the gut, the pneumatic duct, allowing the fish to fill up the swim bladder by "gulping" air. Excess gas can be removed in a similar manner.
In more derived varieties of fish (the physoclisti), the connection to the digestive tract is lost. In early life stages, these fish must rise to the surface to fill up their swim bladders; in later stages, the pneumatic duct disappears, and the gas gland has to introduce gas (usually oxygen) to the bladder to increase its volume and thus increase buoyancy. This process begins with the acidification of the blood in the rete mirabile when the gas gland excretes lactic acid and produces carbon dioxide, the latter of which acidifies the blood via the bicarbonate buffer system. The resulting acidity causes the hemoglobin of the blood to lose its oxygen (Root effect) which then diffuses partly into the swim bladder. Before returning to the body, the blood re-enters the rete mirabile, and as a result, virtually all the excess carbon dioxide and oxygen produced in the gas gland diffuses back to the arteries supplying the gas gland via a countercurrent multiplication loop. Thus a very high gas pressure of oxygen can be obtained, which can even account for the presence of gas in the swim bladders of deep sea fish like the eel, requiring a pressure of hundreds of bars. [5] Elsewhere, at a similar structure known as the 'oval window', the bladder is in contact with blood and the oxygen can diffuse back out again. Together with oxygen, other gases are salted out[ clarification needed ] in the swim bladder which accounts for the high pressures of other gases as well. [6]
The combination of gases in the bladder varies. In shallow water fish, the ratios closely approximate that of the atmosphere, while deep sea fish tend to have higher percentages of oxygen. For instance, the eel Synaphobranchus has been observed to have 75.1% oxygen, 20.5% nitrogen, 3.1% carbon dioxide, and 0.4% argon in its swim bladder.
Physoclist swim bladders have one important disadvantage: they prohibit fast rising, as the bladder would burst. Physostomes can "burp" out gas, though this complicates the process of re-submergence.
The swim bladder in some species, mainly fresh water fishes (common carp, catfish, bowfin) is interconnected with the inner ear of the fish. They are connected by four bones called the Weberian ossicles from the Weberian apparatus. These bones can carry the vibrations to the saccule and the lagena. They are suited for detecting sound and vibrations due to its low density in comparison to the density of the fish's body tissues. This increases the ability of sound detection. [7] The swim bladder can radiate the pressure of sound which help increase its sensitivity and expand its hearing. In some deep sea fishes like the Antimora , the swim bladder maybe also connected to the macula of saccule in order for the inner ear to receive a sensation from the sound pressure. [8] In red-bellied piranha, the swim bladder may play an important role in sound production as a resonator. The sounds created by piranhas are generated through rapid contractions of the sonic muscles and is associated with the swim bladder. [9]
Teleosts are thought to lack a sense of absolute hydrostatic pressure, which could be used to determine absolute depth. [10] However, it has been suggested that teleosts may be able to determine their depth by sensing the rate of change of swim-bladder volume. [11]
The illustration of the swim bladder in fishes ... shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely, flotation, may be converted into one for a widely different purpose, namely, respiration. The swim bladder has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fishes. All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is homologous, or “ideally similar” in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there is no reason to doubt that the swim bladder has actually been converted into lungs, or an organ used exclusively for respiration. According to this view it may be inferred that all vertebrate animals with true lungs are descended by ordinary generation from an ancient and unknown prototype, which was furnished with a floating apparatus or swim bladder.
Charles Darwin, 1859 [3]
Swim bladders are evolutionarily closely related (i.e., homologous) to lungs. The first lungs originated in the last common ancestor of the Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish) and Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish and the tetrapods) as expansions of the upper digestive tract which allowed them to gulp air under oxygen-poor conditions. [12] In the Actinopteri (ray-finned fish minus the bichirs) the lungs evolved into a swim bladder (secondary absent in some lineages), which unlike lungs that bud ventrally, buds dorsally from the anterior foregut. [13] [14] Coelacanths have a "fatty organ" that have sometimes been referred to as a swim bladder, but is structurally different and have a separate evolutionary history. [15]
In 1997, Farmer proposed that lungs evolved to supply the heart with oxygen. In fish, blood circulates from the gills to the skeletal muscle, and only then to the heart. During intense exercise, the oxygen in the blood gets used by the skeletal muscle before the blood reaches the heart. Primitive lungs gave an advantage by supplying the heart with oxygenated blood via the cardiac shunt. This theory is robustly supported by the fossil record, the ecology of extant air-breathing fishes, and the physiology of extant fishes. [16] In embryonal development, both lung and swim bladder originate as an outpocketing from the gut; in the case of swim bladders, this connection to the gut continues to exist as the pneumatic duct in the more "primitive" ray-finned fish, and is lost in some of the more derived teleost orders. There are no animals which have both lungs and a swim bladder.
As an adaptation to migrations between the surface and deeper waters, some fish have evolved a swim bladder where the gas is replaced with low-density wax esters as a way to cope with Boyle's law. [17]
The cartilaginous fish (e.g., sharks and rays) split from the other fishes about 420 million years ago, and lack both lungs and swim bladders, suggesting that these structures evolved after that split. [16] Correspondingly, these fish also have both heterocercal and stiff, wing-like pectoral fins which provide the necessary lift needed due to the lack of swim bladders. Teleost fish with swim bladders have neutral buoyancy, and have no need for this lift. [18]
The swim bladder of a fish can strongly reflect sound of an appropriate frequency. Strong reflection happens if the frequency is tuned to the volume resonance of the swim bladder. This can be calculated by knowing a number of properties of the fish, notably the volume of the swim bladder, although the well-accepted method for doing so [19] requires correction factors for gas-bearing zooplankton where the radius of the swim bladder is less than about 5 cm. [20] This is important, since sonar scattering is used to estimate the biomass of commercially- and environmentally-important fish species.
Sonar operators, using the newly developed sonar technology during World War II, were puzzled by what appeared to be a false sea floor 300–500 metres deep at day, and less deep at night. This turned out to be due to millions of marine organisms, most particularly small mesopelagic fish, with swimbladders that reflected the sonar. These organisms migrate up into shallower water at dusk to feed on plankton. The layer is deeper when the moon is out, and can become shallower when clouds obscure the moon. [21]
Most mesopelagic fish make daily vertical migrations, moving at night into the epipelagic zone, often following similar migrations of zooplankton, and returning to the depths for safety during the day. [22] [23] These vertical migrations often occur over large vertical distances, and are undertaken with the assistance of a swim bladder. The swim bladder is inflated when the fish wants to move up, and, given the high pressures in the mesoplegic zone, this requires significant energy. As the fish ascends, the pressure in the swimbladder must adjust to prevent it from bursting. When the fish wants to return to the depths, the swimbladder is deflated. [24] Some mesopelagic fishes make daily migrations through the thermocline, where the temperature changes between 10 and 20 °C, thus displaying considerable tolerance for temperature change.
Sampling via deep trawling indicates that lanternfish account for as much as 65% of all deep sea fish biomass. [25] Indeed, lanternfish are among the most widely distributed, populous, and diverse of all vertebrates, playing an important ecological role as prey for larger organisms. The estimated global biomass of lanternfish is 550–660 million tonnes, several times the annual world fisheries catch. Lanternfish also account for much of the biomass responsible for the deep scattering layer of the world's oceans. Sonar reflects off the millions of lanternfish swim bladders, giving the appearance of a false bottom. [26]
In the East Asian culinary sphere, the swim bladders of certain large fishes are considered a food delicacy. In Chinese cuisine, they are known as fish maw, 花膠/鱼鳔, [27] and are served in soups or stews.
The vanity price of a vanishing kind of maw is behind the imminent extinction of the vaquita, the world's smallest porpoise species. Found only in Mexico's Gulf of California, the once numerous vaquita are now critically endangered. [28] Vaquita die in gillnets [29] set to catch totoaba (the world's largest drum fish). Totoaba are being hunted to extinction for its maw, which can sell for as much $10,000 per kilogram.
Swim bladders are also used in the food industry as a source of collagen. They can be made into a strong, water-resistant glue, or used to make isinglass for the clarification of beer. [30] In earlier times, they were used to make condoms. [31]
Swim bladder disease is a common ailment in aquarium fish. A fish with swim bladder disorder can float nose down tail up, or can float to the top or sink to the bottom of the aquarium. [32]
Many anthropogenic activities, such as pile driving or even seismic waves, can create high-intensity sound waves that cause internal injury to fish that possess a gas bladder. Physoclisti can not expel air quickly enough from the gas bladder, the organ most susceptible to sonic damage, thus making it difficult for them to escape major injury. Physostomes, on the other hand, can release air from their gas bladder expeditiously enough to protect it; nevertheless, they can not relieve pressure in their other vital organs, and are therefore also vulnerable to injury. [33] Some of the commonly seen injuries include ruptured gas bladder and renal Haemorrhage. These mostly affect the overall health of the fish but not their mortality rate. [33] Investigators employed the High-Intensity-Controlled Impedance-Fluid-Filled (HICI-FT), a stainless-steel wave tube with an electromagnetic shaker. It simulates high-energy sound waves in aquatic far-field, plane-wave acoustic conditions. [34] [35]
Siphonophores have a special swim bladder that allows the jellyfish-like colonies to float along the surface of the water while their tentacles trail below. This organ is unrelated to the one in fish. [36]
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 skin supported by radially extended thin bony spines called lepidotrichia, as opposed to the bulkier, fleshy lobed fins of the sister class Sarcopterygii. Resembling folding fans, the actinopterygian fins can easily change shape and wetted area, providing superior thrust-to-weight ratios per movement compared to sarcopterygian and chondrichthyian fins. The fin rays attach directly to the proximal or basal skeletal elements, the radials, which represent the articulation between these fins and the internal skeleton.
Osteichthyes, also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes and the extinct placoderms and acanthodians, which have endoskeletons primarily composed of cartilage. The vast majority of extant fish are members of Osteichthyes, being an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of 45 orders, over 435 families and 28,000 species. It is the largest class of vertebrates in existence today, encompassing most aquatic vertebrates, as well as all semi-aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates.
Deep-sea fish are fish that live in the darkness below the sunlit surface waters, that is below the epipelagic or photic zone of the sea. The lanternfish is, by far, the most common deep-sea fish. Other deep-sea fishes include the flashlight fish, cookiecutter shark, bristlemouths, anglerfish, viperfish, and some species of eelpout.
The bowfin is a bony fish, native to North America. Common names include mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout, and choupique. It is regarded as a relict, being one of only two surviving species of the Halecomorphi, a group of fish that first appeared during the Early Triassic, around 250 million years ago. The bowfin is often considered a "living fossil" because they have retained some morphological characteristics of their early ancestors. It is one of two species in the genus Amia, along with Amia ocellicauda, the eyespot bowfin. The closest living relatives of bowfins are gars, with the two groups being united in the clade Holostei.
A rete mirabile is a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other, found in some vertebrates, mainly warm-blooded ones. The rete mirabile utilizes countercurrent blood flow within the net to act as a countercurrent exchanger. It exchanges heat, ions, or gases between vessel walls so that the two bloodstreams within the rete maintain a gradient with respect to temperature, or concentration of gases or solutes. This term was coined by Galen.
The swamp eels are a family (Synbranchidae) of freshwater eel-like fishes of the tropics and subtropics. Most species are able to breathe air and typically live in marshes, ponds and damp places, sometimes burying themselves in the mud if the water source dries up. They have various adaptations to suit this lifestyle; they are long and slender, they lack pectoral and pelvic fins, and their dorsal and anal fins are vestigial, making them limbless vertebrates. They lack scales and a swimbladder, and their gills open on the throat in a slit or pore. Oxygen can be absorbed through the lining of the mouth and pharynx, which is rich in blood vessels and acts as a "lung".
Teleostei, members of which are known as teleosts, is, by far, the largest infraclass in the class Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, and contains 96% of all extant species of fish. Teleosts are arranged into about 40 orders and 448 families. Over 26,000 species have been described. Teleosts range from giant oarfish measuring 7.6 m (25 ft) or more, and ocean sunfish weighing over 2 t, to the minute male anglerfish Photocorynus spiniceps, just 6.2 mm (0.24 in) long. Including not only torpedo-shaped fish built for speed, teleosts can be flattened vertically or horizontally, be elongated cylinders or take specialised shapes as in anglerfish and seahorses.
Fish anatomy is the study of the form or morphology of fish. It can be contrasted with fish physiology, which is the study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. In practice, fish anatomy and fish physiology complement each other, the former dealing with the structure of a fish, its organs or component parts and how they are put together, such as might be observed on the dissecting table or under the microscope, and the latter dealing with how those components function together in living fish.
Actinopteri is the sister group of Cladistia (bichirs) in the class Actinopterygii.
The mesopelagiczone, also known as the middle pelagic or twilight zone, is the part of the pelagic zone that lies between the photic epipelagic and the aphotic bathypelagic zones. It is defined by light, and begins at the depth where only 1% of incident light reaches and ends where there is no light; the depths of this zone are between approximately 200 to 1,000 meters below the ocean surface.
Lanternfish are small mesopelagic fish of the large family Myctophidae. One of two families in the order Myctophiformes, the Myctophidae are represented by 246 species in 33 genera, and are found in oceans worldwide. Lanternfishes are aptly named after their conspicuous use of bioluminescence. Their sister family, the Neoscopelidae, are much fewer in number but superficially very similar; at least one neoscopelid shares the common name "lanternfish": the large-scaled lantern fish, Neoscopelus macrolepidotus.
The Pacific viperfish, is a predatory deep-sea fish found in the North Pacific. It is reported as being either mesopelagic or bathypelagic, with diel vertical migration to shallower waters. The Pacific viperfish is one of the nine different species that belong to the genus Chauliodus, the viperfish. The Pacific viperfish tend to be the largest of the species, typically reaching lengths of up to 1 foot and are considered an example of deep-sea gigantism. The length-weight relationship of the pacific viperfish varies with sex with females tending to be longer and heavier than males.
Pelagic fish live in the pelagic zone of ocean or lake waters—being neither close to the bottom nor near the shore—in contrast with demersal fish that live on or near the bottom, and reef fish that are associated with coral reefs.
Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. About 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious. This suggests that many fish genera independently evolved amphibious traits, a process known as convergent evolution. These fish use a range of methods for land movement, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking, and jumping. Many of these methods of locomotion incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral-, pelvic-, and tail-fin movement.
A fish is an aquatic, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fins and a hard skull, but lacking limbs with digits. Fish can be grouped into the more basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish, the latter including all living cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians. Most fish are cold-blooded, their body temperature varying with the surrounding water, though some large active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Many fish can communicate acoustically with each other, such as during courtship displays.
The deep scattering layer, sometimes referred to as the sound scattering layer, is a layer in the ocean consisting of a variety of marine animals. It was discovered through the use of sonar, as ships found a layer that scattered the sound and was thus sometimes mistaken for the seabed. For this reason it is sometimes called the false bottom or phantom bottom. It can be seen to rise and fall each day in keeping with diel vertical migration.
Physostomes are fishes that have a pneumatic duct connecting the gas bladder to the alimentary canal. This allows the gas bladder to be filled or emptied via the mouth. This not only allows the fish to fill their bladder by gulping air, but also to rapidly ascend in the water without the bladder expanding to bursting point. In contrast, fish without any connection to their gas bladder are called physoclisti.
Fish physiology is the scientific study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. It can be contrasted with fish anatomy, which is the study of the form or morphology of fishes. In practice, fish anatomy and physiology complement each other, the former dealing with the structure of a fish, its organs or component parts and how they are put together, such as might be observed on the dissecting table or under the microscope, and the latter dealing with how those components function together in the living fish.
The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. Tetrapods are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. While most species today are terrestrial, little evidence supports the idea that any of the earliest tetrapods could move about on land, as their limbs could not have held their midsections off the ground and the known trackways do not indicate they dragged their bellies around. Presumably, the tracks were made by animals walking along the bottoms of shallow bodies of water. The specific aquatic ancestors of the tetrapods, and the process by which land colonization occurred, remain unclear. They are areas of active research and debate among palaeontologists at present.
The physiology of underwater diving is the physiological adaptations to diving of air-breathing vertebrates that have returned to the ocean from terrestrial lineages. They are a diverse group that include sea snakes, sea turtles, the marine iguana, saltwater crocodiles, penguins, pinnipeds, cetaceans, sea otters, manatees and dugongs. All known diving vertebrates dive to feed, and the extent of the diving in terms of depth and duration are influenced by feeding strategies, but also, in some cases, with predator avoidance. Diving behaviour is inextricably linked with the physiological adaptations for diving and often the behaviour leads to an investigation of the physiology that makes the behaviour possible, so they are considered together where possible. Most diving vertebrates make relatively short shallow dives. Sea snakes, crocodiles, and marine iguanas only dive in inshore waters and seldom dive deeper than 10 meters. Some of these groups can make much deeper and longer dives. Emperor penguins regularly dive to depths of 400 to 500 meters for 4 to 5 minutes, often dive for 8 to 12 minutes, and have a maximum endurance of about 22 minutes. Elephant seals stay at sea for between 2 and 8 months and dive continuously, spending 90% of their time underwater and averaging 20 minutes per dive with less than 3 minutes at the surface between dives. Their maximum dive duration is about 2 hours and they routinely feed at depths between 300 and 600 meters, though they can exceed depths of 1,600 meters. Beaked whales have been found to routinely dive to forage at depths between 835 and 1,070 meters, and remain submerged for about 50 minutes. Their maximum recorded depth is 1,888 meters, and the maximum duration is 85 minutes.
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