Most nienktvissen possess 6 or 7 gill slits, with the latter seemingly being the ancestral state. There are a handful however that have even less. The richibi's, as they are often referred to, are conodonts that only have 5 gill slits. That is hardly the only strange thing about them however, as these fish are known to possess a far greater number of functional fins than most other nienktvissen do, moving them in a wavelike fashion similar to how the extinct Anomalocarids of Earth are speculated to have done.
Some researchers have suggested that richibi's might not even be actual nienktvissen at all, but rather another kind of conodont that independently evolved a similar style of locomotion by splitting the ancestral caudal fin into a number of finlets. There is however, hardly enough evidence to confirm this theory and there is too little genetic testing on nienktvissen as a whole draw support from.
Richibi's are almost exclusively found swimming in the coastlines and river mouths tropical and subtropical Miesjeta. The brown richibi (Virrateops fulvus) is a species that can be found inhabiting estuaries, deltas and the waters near river mouths in Bloëca. Spending a lot of time in murky waters, this fish has long barbels with which it can detect food and foe when visibility becomes too low.
It is thought to feed predominantly on plant matter and mollusks, but too little about its lifestyle is known to say for sure.
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