a shy, mustachioed freshwater fish with fascinating features

In winter, the tench slows down its metabolism and spends the coldest weeks at the bottom of lakes, marshes or rivers with slow currents, often passively buried in the mud. It must be said that the nature of this large fish with beautiful iridescent shades of bottle green on the body, and yellow on the belly, is to particularly appreciate shade.

A gregarious species loving the company of three or four other individuals, particularly comfortable in waters rich in plants and with soft bottoms, the tench adapts easily, sometimes even to brackish waters. It is on the surrounding vegetation that the hundreds of thousands of eggs that the female lays in the spring will be deposited as soon as the sunny days return.

After fertilization by a passing male who spreads his semen on the eggs using his particularly developed pelvic fins, it will often take less than a week for the small larvae to free themselves from their envelope in order to feed through them. -themselves. First plankton and algae, then, as they slowly grow, insect larvae, crustaceans and molluscs.

This freshwater fish will then become an adult with a triangular head from which impressive red or orange eyes emerge. His hearing is particularly developed thanks to the four ossicles of his hearing aid. An undeniable advantage for a restrained species.