The structure and function of the sucker systems of hill stream loaches

Willis, Jay; Perera, Theresa Burt de; Newport, Cait; Poncelet, Guillaume; Sturrock, Craig J.; Thomas, Adrian L. R.

doi:10.1101/851592

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

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“…In general, attachment structures in sh have received attention in the last decades, which even enabled the development of adhesive materials or gripping and adhesive devices [56,69,71,78,82,87,88,89,90,91,92; see reviews 29,30,31,32,93]. However, in contrast to remoras, gobies, hillstream loaches, darters, or cling sh, which were experimentally studied with regard to attachment performance and mechanisms [18, 25,26,55,56,62,73,76,77,78,79,80,94], to date only few experiments [11,72] addresses the real attachment performance of the loricariid suckermouth sh.…”

Section: Attachment Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holding in the stream – convergent evolution of suckermouth structures in Loricariidae (Siluriformes)

Krings,

Konn-Vetterlein,

Gorb

2023

Preprint

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Suckermouth armoured catfish (Loricariidae) are a highly specious and diverse freshwater fish family, which bear upper and lower lips forming an oral disc. Its hierarchical organisation allows the attachment to various natural surfaces. The discs can possess papillae of different shapes, which are supplemented, in many taxa, by small horny projections, i.e. unculi. Although these attachment structures and their working mechanisms, which include adhesion and interlocking, are rather well investigated in some selected species, the loricariid oral disc is unfortunately understudied in majority of species, especially with regard to comparative aspects of the diverse oral structures and their relationship to the ecology of different species. In the present paper, we investigated the papilla and unculi morphologies in 69 loricariid species and undescribed taxa, which inhabit different currents and substrates. We determined four papilla types and eight unculi types differing by forms and sizes. From handling the structures and from drying artefacts we could infer some information about their material properties. This, together with their shape, enabled us to carefully propose hypotheses about mechanisms of interactions of oral disc structures with natural substrates typical for respective fish species.

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Section: Attachment Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holding in the stream – convergent evolution of suckermouth structures in Loricariidae (Siluriformes)

Krings,

Konn-Vetterlein,

Gorb

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Sticky, stickier and stickiest – a comparison of adhesive performance in clingfish, lumpsuckers and snailfish

Huie

Wainwright

Summers

et al. 2022

Journal of Experimental Biology

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The coastal waters of the North Pacific are home to the Northern clingfish (Gobiesox maeandricus), Pacific spiny lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis), and marbled snailfish (Liparis dennyi) – three fishes that have evolved ventral adhesive discs. Clingfish adhesive performance has been studied extensively, but relatively little is known about the performance of other sticky fishes. Here, we compared the peak adhesive forces and work to detachment of clingfish, lumpsuckers, and snailfish on surfaces of varying roughness and over ontogeny. We also investigated the morphology of their adhesive discs through micro-CT scanning and scanning electron microscopy. We found evidence that adhesive performance is tied to the intensity and variability of flow regimes in the fishes’ habitats. The Northern clingfish generates the highest adhesive forces and lives in the rocky intertidal where it must resist exposure to crashing waves. Lumpsuckers and snailfish both generate only a fraction of the clingfish's adhesive force, but live more subtidal where currents are slower and less variable. However, lumpsuckers generate more adhesive force relative to their body weight than snailfish, which we attribute to their higher-drag body shape and frequent bouts into the intertidal. Even so, the performance and morphology data suggest that snailfish adhesive discs are stiffer and built more efficiently than lumpsucker discs. Future studies should focus on sampling additional diversity and designing more ecologically relevant experiments when investigating differences in adhesive performance.

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The structure and function of the sucker systems of hill stream loaches

Cited by 2 publications

References 8 publications

Holding in the stream – convergent evolution of suckermouth structures in Loricariidae (Siluriformes)

Holding in the stream – convergent evolution of suckermouth structures in Loricariidae (Siluriformes)

Sticky, stickier and stickiest – a comparison of adhesive performance in clingfish, lumpsuckers and snailfish

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