Common snipe fish
| Common snipe fish | ||||||||||||
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Common snipefish ( Macroramphosus scolopax ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Macroramphosus scolopax | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The common snipe fish ( Macroramphosus scolopax ) is the best-known species of snipe fish and is found worldwide, especially in temperate marine areas.
features
The common snipe fish has a tall, laterally strongly flattened body and a conspicuous, elongated and tubular snout, from which it owes its name. It reaches a body length of about 15 to 20 centimeters, about 6 centimeters are allotted to the snout. While the fry are silvery, the adults are pink to red in color. The unscaled body is armored by bone plates between the pectoral and dorsal fin and at the edge of the abdomen.
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The fish has a two-part dorsal fin , the first consisting of four to seven fin spines and the second spine being elongated and sawn pointing backwards. It reaches a length of about four centimeters. The second dorsal fin consists of 10 to 14 and the anal fin of 18 to 20 fin rays.
distribution
The snipe fish can be found in the coastal areas of many different seas. He lives in the Eastern Atlantic on the coasts of Europe and Africa as well as in the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea , also on the west Atlantic coast from the Gulf of Maine to Argentina and in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean on the coasts of Asia and Australia and the Indo-Pacific islands. The fish has the main distribution in temperate climates between 20 and 40 degrees north latitude.
Way of life
The fish live mainly on sandy and rocky coasts at depths of 25 to 600 meters ( continental shelf ), where they mainly stay on the bottom during the day and on the surface at night. The fry live continuously pelagic in surface water. They feed on small invertebrates that they suck up with their mouths. The young fish mainly eat copepods , while the old fish look for animals living on the ground.
literature
- Andreas Vilcinskas : Fish. Central European freshwater species and marine fish from the North and Baltic Seas. BLV, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-405-15848-6 .
Web links
- Common snipe fish on Fishbase.org (English)
- Macroramphosus scolopax in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2013.2. Posted by: Fritzsche, R., Matsuura, K., Collette, B., Nelson, J., Dooley, J., Carpenter, K., Bartnik, S., Robinson, E. & Morgan, SK, 2009. Retrieved on February 10, 2014.