Ice lantern fish

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Ice lantern fish
Benthosema glaciale.jpg

Ice lantern fish ( Benthosema glaciale )

Systematics
Cohort : Euteleosteomorpha
Sub-cohort : Neoteleostei
Order : Lanternfish (Myctophiformes)
Family : Lanternfish (Myctophidae)
Genre : Benthosema
Type : Ice lantern fish
Scientific name
Benthosema glaciale
( Reinhardt , 1837)

The ice lantern fish ( Benthosema glaciale ) is a small, oceanic deep-sea fish that occurs in the northern Atlantic between 11 ° and 87 ° north latitude.

distribution

Its distribution area extends in the eastern Atlantic from Svalbard and the coast of Greenland to the coast of Morocco and Mauritania , where nutrient-rich deep waters rise. It is found in the western Atlantic from the northern part of the Gulf Stream to Davis Strait and Baffin Bay . It also occurs in the western and central Mediterranean to the Ionian Sea . It is the most common lantern fish in the North Atlantic and also common in the western Mediterranean.

features

The fish are about 10 centimeters long. Their body color is dark brown to blackish. The rear end of the upper jaw is wide. Like all lantern fish, the ice lantern fish has luminous organs in rows along the lower half of the body and on the head. The last two luminous organs below in front of the caudal fin are not separated from the other luminous organs along the edge of the abdomen. The caudal fin is forked, behind the dorsal fin there is a small adipose fin .

Fin formula : dorsal 13-14, anal 17-19.

Way of life

The ice lantern fish lives at depths of around 375 to 1400 meters during the day (mostly between 300 and 400 meters), but rises to depths between 12 and 200 meters at night to search for food ( vertical migration ). It feeds mainly on copepods of the order Calanoida and small krill . The fish reach sexual maturity with a length of three to five centimeters. In the Mediterranean, the ice lantern fish spawns in late spring. Depending on their size, the females lay 160 to 2000 eggs. The ice lantern fish lives a maximum of eight years.

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 .

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