Valencia’s Oceanogràfic has hosted the birth of a guitar fish –Glaucostegus Cemiculus– For the first time in its facilities. It is a species cataloged in critical danger of extinction by the red list of threatened species of the International Union for the conservation of nature (IUCN). Only one of the young has managed to survive the two who were born.
The birth, which took place on February 18, in view of the public, is “a milestone” for the Valencia Marine Center and reinforces its commitment to the protection of threatened animalsas highlighted by the Complex of the City of Arts and Sciences.
The team detected that one of the females was pregnant while performing veterinary controls of adults within the frame Management and conservation of the guitar population in the natural environment.
Given this situation, the specialists decided to transfer the pregnant female to a more sheltered area of the installation of oceans to guarantee their well -being. Gestation culminated with the Birth of two younga male and a female, of which only the male managed to survive. The surviving breeding, which caregivers have called ‘UKELELEE’, is located in the Oceanogràfic Quarantine area, where it remains under supervision until it reaches the appropriate size and weight to transfer it to the nursery of oceans, located in the access building.
UKELELE, supervised and very useful
During the first phase of its development, ‘Ukelele’ fed from its Viteloa nutritional reserve that allows you to strengthen during the first weeks of life. For a few days, it has already started eating small rations of Boquerón and Gamba.
The guitar fish is a ovovavopara specieswhich means that young are born fully developed at the time of childbirth. During the mating, the males bite the pectoral fins and the album of the females, a behavior that had been recorded in the Oceanogràfic on previous occasions, but without reproduction results.
This birth will allow to continue expanding knowledge about one of the most threatened fish species globally, only surpassed by Sierra Fish and amphibians.
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