Yangtze whitebait

It was called "the remnant fish" in ancient times. This fish is slender, transparent and smooth, about one finger long. I like to live in the Yangtze River estuary near the sea. The formal name is Jian Silverfish, and the locals call it "noodle fish". Because this fish has fine bones and no scales, its color is bright as silver, and its taste is extremely delicious, so it is favored by diners. Usually live in the main and tributaries of the Yangtze River. Feeding on zooplankton. Sexual maturity in half a year. 1. Winter-aged fish enter the lake from the river in April to May, where they breed with weeds. After reproduction, the parent fish is obviously emaciated and dies soon. Distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and its affiliated lakes. The individual is not big. The largest individual is about 140 mm long and weighs about 5 grams. It is an annual fish. In the reproductive season, fishing is widespread, and the number is extremely considerable. Whitebait is delicious, nutritious and has a special flavor, especially before spawning. In addition to fresh food, most of them are dried and exported, and the trade name is "dried Yan". The protein content of dried whitebait is 72.1%, and the fat content is 13%, which is higher than other edible fish. Every 100 grams of whitebait also contains 4,820 mg of lysine, 2,308 mg of methionine, 4,176 mg of isoleucine, 4,396 mg of valine and 6,652 mg of threonine. Such rich amino acids are rare in other fish species. Each hundred grams of whitebait can supply 407 kilocalories, which is almost 5-6 times that of ordinary edible fish; Its calcium content is as high as 761 mg, which is the highest among fish. The whitebait in the Yangtze River is the largest individual in the whitebait family, with a general specification of about 120mm, and the largest individual can reach 210 mm. It is slender, colorless and transparent, without scales, with a slightly cylindrical front, a flat back, a tapering snout, a flat head, a longer lower jaw than the upper jaw, a fat fin behind the dorsal fin, golden eyes from the back and silvery white eyes from the side, and several lines of small black pigments on the ventral surface and both sides of the living body. The feeding whitebait in the Yangtze River is a fierce fish with no stomach, and its intestine is straight after the esophagus. The feeding habits of young fish and adult fish are quite different. In the juvenile stage, it eats cladocera, copepods and some algae of zooplankton, and gradually shifts to carnivorous after the body length is 80mm, and mainly feeds on small fish and shrimp above 110mm, which has the same kind of cannibalism, especially in the feeding habit transformation stage. The whitebait in the Yangtze River can swallow 33-68% of its own food fish, which is much higher than the proportion of 20% of its own food fish that can be swallowed by the red-fin culter and the genus culter.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)