Sternarchella
Sign in to saveSternarchella, the bulldog knifefishes, is a genus of ghost knifefishes found at depths of in the main channel of large rivers in South America. Most are from the Amazon basin, but S. orthos is found both in the Amazon and Orinoco, S. orinoco is restricted to the Orinoco and S. curvioperculata restricted to the upper Paraná basin (however, the last species likely belongs in another genus, possibly Apteronotus). They are often common in their habitat.
Species
GENUS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumChordata
- ClassTeleostei
- OrderGymnotiformes
- FamilyApteronotidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 260
- Family
- Apteronotidae
- Collections
- CUMV, USNM, AUM
- Recorded in
- Venezuela, Brazil, Peru
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2 sectionsContents
- Species
- References
Sternarchella, the bulldog knifefishes, is a genus of ghost knifefishes found at depths of in the main channel of large rivers in South America. Most are from the Amazon basin, but S. orthos is found both in the Amazon and Orinoco, S. orinoco is restricted to the Orinoco and S. curvioperculata restricted to the upper Paraná basin (however, the last species likely belongs in another genus, possibly Apteronotus). They are often common in their habitat.
They have a blunt or pointed snout (none have the greatly elongated snout found in some other knifefish), reduced pigmentation and reach up to in total length depending on the species. They feed on invertebrates and small fish.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sternarchella” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.