Question

How important is the presence of an air bladder in Pisces?

Answer 1

Hint: Fishes are characterised as a life form rather than a taxonomic group, belonging to the category of aquatic vertebrates. They can be distinguished from other animals such as amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals due to the occurrence of gills for breathing, fins for locomotion, and the undeniable fact that they are found in water bodies.

Complete Answer:
- Fishes occupy the phylum Chordata. They have characteristic features like gill slits, a notochord, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. These features differentiate them from other animals.
- Most fishes are ectothermic, i.e. they are cold-blooded. This implies that they can adapt to different atmospheric Conditions and can regulate their body temperatures based on the surrounding environmental temperature changes.
- The great white shark and tuna have the capacity to hold higher core temperatures. Fish can communicate in their underwater environments through the use of acoustic communication.
- Fishes can be seen present in abundance in most water bodies and nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the oceans.
- A swim bladder is a specialized organ that is present in fishes and is filled with air that helps to ensure that the fish neither sinks nor floats too much by regulating a stable buoyancy in water.
- All fishes constitute the swim bladder. Swim bladders are also known as air bladders, gas bladders, or fish maw. Air bladders help to perform fishes swimming without having to waste energy by allowing them to remain at their current water depth.
- The swim bladder also functions as a resonating chamber that produces or receives Sound. Air bladders are present in fishes that have a skeletal structure made out of bones. Swim bladders are predominantly utilized by bony fishes.
- To produce or receive sound, this swim bladder serves as a resonating chamber. The swim bladder instead of oil instead of gas in some species. It functions as a lung or respiratory aid instead of a hydrostatic organ in certain species but is missing in some bottom- dwelling and deep-sea bony fish (teleost) and all cartilaginous fish (sharks, skates, and rays).
- Sharks have a cartilaginous skeleton and do not have swim bladders. Alike sharks; rays, stingrays, and skates have a cartilaginous skeleton and do not have swim bladders.

Note: Many bony fishes show the presence of the swim bladder or air bladder which is a buoyancy organ and is located in the body cavity and is derived from an out pocketing of the digestive tube. This air bladder contains gas (usually oxygen) and functions as a hydrostatic or ballast organ, which helps the fish to maintain its depth without floating upward or sinking.