Glass eye (fish)
| Glass eye | ||||||||||||
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Glass eye ( Argentina sphyraena ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Argentina sphyraena | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The glass eye ( Argentina sphyraena ) is a fish from the north-western Atlantic . Its distribution area extends from the coast of northern Norway over the northern, deeper parts of the North Sea , the west coasts of Scotland and England , the Irish coast and the Biscay to the coast of the Western Sahara . It is also found in the western Mediterranean , the Ionian Sea , the Skagerrak and the coast of southern Iceland , on the Wyville-Thomson Ridge and in the Faroe and Shetland Islands .
features
The glass eye becomes a maximum of 35 cm long, but usually remains at a length of 20 cm. It is elongated and slender and has a short-based dorsal fin located directly behind the end of the pectoral fins and in front of the middle of the body, as well as an adipose fin . The length of the snout is greater than or equal to the diameter of the eye. There are 50 to 54 scales along the sidelines .
Way of life
The glass eye is a schooling fish that lives above the upper areas of the continental shelf at depths of 50 to 500 meters, and in the eastern Ionian Sea at a depth of around 300 to 700 meters. The fish eat bottom invertebrates such as polychaetes , molluscs and crustaceans , but also pelagic invertebrates and small fish. The breeding season is in the Mediterranean in winter and in spring, in the British Isles from May to July. Eggs and larvae are pelagic. The glass eye becomes sexually mature with a length of 12 to 13 cm and is a maximum of 16 years old.
use
Glass eyes are fished commercially and made into fish meal . Like smelt , freshly caught specimens have a cucumber-like odor.
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
- Argentina sphyraena on Fishbase.org (English)