The garfish (the photo of this predator can be seen in the pictures below), not without reason, claims to be the pike even in spite of its modest appearance. In fact, this predator can be called cute. It is painted rather modestly, but with taste. Against the background of a bright silver abdomen, a contrasting dark green back looks elegantly. The body is round, long and swept, very similar to saury. The jaws of the predator are swept and sharp at the ends, and the lower of them is much longer than the upper. The mouth is strewn with small teeth, and the prey caught has practically no chance of escaping from it. Anal and dorsal fins are located closer to the tail.
The fish garfish, or arrow fish, belongs to the genus Garfish. This flock predator lives off the coast of North Africa and Europe in moderately warm waters. It also occurs in the Sea of Azov, Black, Northern, Mediterranean, Baltic and Barents Seas. Keeps fish near the surface of the water. You can watch and admire the flock of garfish for a long time. They swim in undulating bends, and only suddenly start to rush to the water's edge, when they quickly jump out of it and are already wriggling in air flight, sparkling with their wet silver sides.
Such dances are started by the fish in several cases: either it rescues something, or hunts insects for water. The latter can be called an addition to the main food of predators. They feed on small fish. The diet includes hamsa, juvenile mackerel, sprats, and they also do not disdain small crustaceans. Residualness is unusual for them, for example, in the spring, garfish in the Black Sea migrates after hamsa to the Sea of Azov. During the day, as a rule, she tries to be in the deeper layers of water, and with the onset of darkness rises to the surface.
Harpfish fish usually reaches puberty only at the 5th or 6th year of life, although some individuals can mature at the age of three. Long spawning begins in the spring at the end of April and lasts until mid-October. Most of the garfish are spawning from May to the second half of August. Three-millimeter eggs are laid on floating objects or algae and attached to them with the help of long threads, which they have at least 60 pieces. Caviar development depends on water temperature. It can last from 10 days to 5 weeks.
In the Black Sea, the first larvae appear in the coastal zone in early June, they hold on to the upper layers of the water. They are very different from adults with shorter jaws. At the end of the first year of their life, small predators acquire a typical appearance for their species and begin to retreat to the depths. Garfish can live for more than 13 years, but 5–9-year-old individuals most often prevail in commercial catches. This fish has one feature: it has a green skeleton. In this regard, many have distrust about the edibility of a predator. However, there is no doubt, the garfish are very tasty and fried, and dried, and salted, and smoked. And the green color of the bones is obtained due to the pigment biliverdin, which is a metabolic product in these fish. By the way, the same bones can be seen in eelpout fish.
In the world there are only 25 species of garfish, but in the Black Sea there is only Atlantic garfish, or ordinary. In different countries, this fish is also called spindle, or snipe. In Finland it’s zuya-fish, in Turkey it’s zaggan fish, and in Crimea it’s a needle, although the latter is a completely different representative of marine fauna and has nothing to do with garfish.
