Description
A. ocellatus examples have been reported to grow to about 45 cm (18 in) in length and 1.6 kilograms (3.5 lb) in weight. The wild-caught forms of the species are typically darkly coloured with orange-ringed spots or ocelli on the caudal peduncle and on the dorsal fin. These ocelli have been suggested to function to limit fin-nipping by piranha (Serrasalmus spp.), which co-occur with A. ocellatus in its natural environment. The species is also able to rapidly alter its colouration, a trait which facilitates ritualised territorial and combat behaviours amongst conspecifics. Juvenile oscars have a different colouration from adults, and are striped with white and orange wavy bands and have spotted heads.
Read more about this topic: Oscar (fish)
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)