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Abstract

publisher<Synopsis>The swamp eel, Monopterus albus is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical freshwaters such as Southeast China, the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, India, Malay Peninsula, East Indies and Ryukyu archipelago, Japan. As physiological information on the swamp eel has only been marginally accumulated, blood properties need to be clarified by a chemical analysis. Hematological characters were measured by the five blood parameters : Hematocrit Value (Ht), Hemoglobin Volume (Hb), Red Blood Cell (RBC), White Blood Cell (WBC), and length of Erythrocyte. Moreover, three erythrocytes indices were calculated by blood parameters : Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) and Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC). The blood character of the swamp eel was confirmed by the clusteranalysis with the properties of blood from 32 marine fishes and 22 freshwater fishes. The swamp eels were activated with increasing temperature, but died when the temperature rose above 39°C. The activity of the fishes declined as the water temperature decreased. In blood properties of swamp eels, compared to general freshwater fish, Ht and Hb are high. Thevalues of Ht, Hb and RBC were rose when cooled to 0°C, but erythrocytes indices showed homeostasis from 0 to 35°C. The results suggested that the swamp eel has a distinctive blood property and a unique mechanism for adapting to cold temperatures by fasting