Silver hatchet
| Silver hatchet | ||||||||||||
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Silver hatchet ( Argyropelecus olfersii ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Argyropelecus olfersii | ||||||||||||
| ( Cuvier , 1829) |
The Silberbeil ( Argyropelecus olfersii ) is a small deep-sea fish from the family of sternoptychidae (Sternoptychidae). The fish live in the eastern Atlantic from the coast of Iceland to the Canary Islands and are occasionally found in the northern North Sea ( Norwegian channel ) and in the Skagerrak . There are also deposits in the South Atlantic off the coast of South Africa and Namibia and in the southeastern Pacific off the coast of Chile .
features
The body of the silver ax is silvery in color, short, high-backed and strongly flattened on the sides. The fish are seven to nine centimeters long. On the abdomen there are very large luminous organs that are fully developed from a standard length of 16 to 17 mm. The eyes are directed upwards, the mouth is almost vertical. At the bottom of the gill cover there are some spines pointing forward and downward. A spike on the upper edge of the gill cover is short and directed outwards. The midline of the abdomen is marked by a concave indentation. There is a bony ridge in front of the two short dorsal fins. A long, low adipose fin sits on the tail fin stalk .
Way of life
The silver hatchet lives mesopelagic in the open sea. During the day it stays at depths of 200 to 800 meters and only undertakes short vertical hikes. At night it rises to a depth of 100 meters below the surface of the water. It mainly eats crustaceans and small fish. Larvae before metamorphosis live at depths of 100 to 300 meters.
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 .
Web links
- Silberbeil on Fishbase.org (English)