List of Mediterranean fish

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are over 700 species of fish in the Mediterranean, and they are listed in the following list. These include three round-mouthed fish , around 90 cartilaginous fish , the rest are bony fish .

With an area of 2.5 million km², the Mediterranean is about five times as large as the North Sea and, with the calypso deep , reaches a maximum depth of 5,267 m. It is divided by the Italian peninsula into a western and an eastern basin, which are climatically and oceanographically different from each other and are both divided into a number of smaller basins.

Some of the Mediterranean's fish species are native to the North Atlantic and migrated through the Strait of Gibraltar , including sprat , European hake , European sea bass , plaice and many species of rays from the Raja genus . These boreal species mainly inhabit the northwestern Mediterranean and the Adriatic .

Warmth-loving species that originate from the tropics occur mainly in the eastern part, the Levant Basin , or are coastal inhabitants. Part of this species, like the wrasse wrasse and ornate wrasse that Salema porgy and Common stingray immigrated from the tropical Atlantic, others, like the Great SARGO , the puffer Lagocephalus Lagocephalus and the Great pipefish are Indo-Pacific origin. Their ancestors reached what is now the Mediterranean region via the Tethys Ocean. Due to the north drift of Africa together with the still firmly connected Arabian Peninsula and today's Indian Plate , the Tethys increasingly disappeared until the Upper Eocene and the connection to the Indo-Pacific was broken. Since the Suez Canal was built , almost 100 species of fish have migrated from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, a process known as Lesseps migration .

Almost worldwide distributed species that also occur in the Mediterranean include the great white and blue shark , the bluefin tuna , the common golden mackerel , the pilot fish and the mullet . About 70 endemic species live in the Mediterranean .

Relief of the seabed of the Mediterranean Sea.

Round mouths

Sea lamprey

Cartilaginous fish

Sea cats

Sea cat

Sharks

Small black dogfish , caught near Sardinia
Spotted shark , caught near Sardinia
Basking shark
Blue shark

Rays

Spotted electric ray near Corsica.
Mirror rays on the coast of Croatia.
Marble rays
Striped eagle ray

Bony fish

Disruptive

Eel-like

Conger eel at Port-Cros
Mediterranean moray eel near Corsica
Ophisurus serpens

Thornback eels

Notacanthus bonaparte

Herring-like

School of sardines in the Ligurian Sea
Large school of anchovies on the Ligurian coast

Catfish

Salmon & Golden Salmon

Maulstachler

Argyropelecus hemigymnus prey on a shrimp, underwater shot from the Strait of Messina
Chauliodus sloani , Strait of Messina

Lizardfish relatives

Chlorophthalmus agassizi , caught near Sardinia
Synodus saurus

Lanternfish relatives

Lobianchia gemellarii
Slender-tailed lantern fish from the Strait of Messina.

Gloss fish

Monkfish in a market in El Port de la Selva

Cod-like & Petersfisch-like

Petersfish , Strait of Messina
Phycis phycis , Croatia
Three-bearded sea burbot , Italian coast

Mucous heads

Trachichthyiformes

Hoplostethus mediterraneus

Soldier and hussar fish

Gut fishy

Bearded male ( Ophidion barbatum ) on the coast of Tuscany

Cardinalfish

Red mullet king near Marseille

Gobies

Aphia minuta
Chromogobius zebratus
Anemone goby
Gobius paganellus
Pomatoschistus marmoratus
Thorogobius ephippiatus .
All goby photos are from the Tuscan coast.

Pipefish-like

Long-snouted seahorse Sardinia
Grass needle Croatia

Lyrefish

Callionymus pusillus , Greece

Red mullet

Striped barbs , Cartagena

Mackerel-like i. w. S.

Tuna mackerel , Ligurian Sea
Blue butterfish caught near Naples.

Jackfish

Trachinotus ovatus , Alonissos

Barracudas

Sphyraena viridensis

Swordfish-like

Mediterranean marlin

Flatfish

Winged flounder caught in the Tyrrhenian Sea
Zeugopterus regius , Tuscany
Microchirus ocellatus

Earfish relatives

Common garfish near Lefkada
Swallowfish

Mullets

Gold mullets on the Corsican coast.

Damselfish

Tortoiseshell & slimy fish

Red spot suckers , Tuscany
Sea butterfly , Strait of Messina
Tripterygion tripteronotum , Croatia

Butterfly fish

Sweetlips and grunts

Umberfish

Sea raven

Skygazers and relatives

Ordinary weever at Giglio's

Wrasse

Mermaid , male, Tuscany
Sea peacock , female, Crete
Monk fish

Sea bream and relatives

Red bream , giglio
Gold Stripes , Croatia
Centracanthus cirrus young fish, Toscana
Spicara maena , Toscana

Armless

Puffer fish relatives

Stephanolepis diaspros , caught near Bari

Grunts and relatives

Deep sea cardinalfish

Sawfish , groupers and weever

Mediterranean Anthias at Giglio .
Brown grouper

Scorpionfish relatives

Small dragon head near Cartagena

Gurnards

Striped gurnard on the coast of Croatia.

Bull relatives

Other perch relatives

Others

See also

literature

  • Bent J. Muus, Jørgen G. Nielsen: The marine fish of Europe in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Atlantic. Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07804-3 .
  • Matthias Bergbauer, Bernd Humberg: What lives in the Mediterranean? 1999, Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, ISBN 3-440-07733-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CIESM Atlas of Exotic Fishes in the Mediterranean Sea
  2. ↑ Kurt Fiedler: Textbook of Special Zoology, Volume II, Part 2: Fish . Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena, 1991, ISBN 3-334-00339-6 .

Web links