Spotted Great Sand Eel
| Spotted Great Sand Eel | ||||||||||||
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Spotted Great Sand Eel ( Hyperoplus lanceolatus ) |
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| Hyperoplus lanceolatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Le Sauvage , 1824) |
The spotted great sand eel ( Hyperoplus lanceolatus ) is an elongated marine fish that lives in the northeastern Atlantic from the coast of Portugal , across the Bay of Biscay , the coasts of the British Isles and Norway to Murmansks . It is also found in the North Sea , in most of the Baltic Sea , near Iceland and Svalbard .
features
The spotted great sandeel grows to a maximum of 40 cm, but usually stays at 20 cm. Sexual maturity occurs with a length of 11 to 15 cm. The main feature that distinguishes it from the Immaculate Great Sand Eel ( Hyperoplus immaculatus ), the only other species in the genus Hyperoplus , is a dark spot on each side of the snout. In contrast to the small sandeel ( Ammodytes marinus ) and the Tobias fish ( Ammodytes tobianus ), the upper jaws of the two Hyperoplus species are not protractile (cannot be turned out). They have two pointed teeth on the palate. The long dorsal fin extends over a large part of the length of the body, the anal fin begins behind the middle. The caudal fin is forked. When put on, the pectoral fins extend to the beginning of the dorsal fin.
Way of life
The spotted sand eel lives close to the coast in the sea and in brackish water in the intertidal zone , estuaries and at depths of 6 to 30 meters, in winter a little away from the coast at depths of up to 60 meters. It is usually associated with Ammodytes species, spends the day buried in the sand and searches for food in large schools at dusk and at night to catch zooplankton and small fish such as young herring and smaller sand eels.
Spotted sand eels spawn in summer, in the North Sea from April to September. During the spawning process at a depth of 20 to 100 meters, up to 35,000 eggs are laid per female that adhere to the sand. The sand eel larvae hatch after about three weeks.
use
Like other sand eels, the spotted great sand eel is an important catch for industrial fishing and is processed into fish meal and fish oil . Its meat is also rarely consumed directly.
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
- Great sand eel on Fishbase.org (English)