Avila beach is home to a huge variety of bony fishes. One of the goals of the Cal Poly pier is to get a closer look at the numerous species that inhabit the surrounding waters with a flowing sea water lab. This would allow students and researchers to study bony fishes and get a better understand of each individual species by observing them instead of reading about them in a book.

Scientific Classification

Phylum – Chordata
Class – osteichthyes

Distribution and Habitat

There are more than 23,500 species of bony fishes that inhabit almost ever body of water. Depending on the species, bony fishes can live at various temperatures, but the water at Avila Beach is usually around 55 °F.

Physical Characteristics

These cold blooded animals breathe through their gills and use fins for swimming. The five traits that all bony fishes have in common include: a skeleton made of bones, paired fins, one pair of gill openings, jaws, and paired nostrils.

Coloration of bony fishes is an important survival trait. In some species of bony fishes, coloration serves as advertisement to other fishes for species recognition and sexual distinction. Most species of fish are countershaded. Countershading is a type of camouflage in which the dorsal, or topside, of the fish is darker than the ventral side, or underside. The dorsal side of a countershaded fish blends in with the dark ocean depths or ocean bottom when viewed from above. The ventral side blends in the with lighter surface of the sea when viewed from below. Under ideal circumstances, neither the fish’s predators not the fish’s prey can differentiate between the countershaded animal and the environment.

As do other classes of fished, bony fishes secrete a layer of mucus that covers the entire body to help protect that fish from infection.

Behavior

Many species of bony fishes swim together in schools. This behavior acts as a protection factor by allowing the school to give the impression of a large animal to discourage predators. Another way that some bony fishes protect themselves is to dwell on the ocean floor.. These types of fish are often reffered to as benthic feeders meaning that they get their food on the bottom of the ocean.

Conservation Issues

As of 1993, over 100 species of native bony fishes were considered endangered or threatened with extinction by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Legal protection for these fish include fishing laws and regulations as well as international cooperation for conservation.