Cuckoo wrasse
| Cuckoo wrasse | ||||||||||||
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male |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Labrus mixtus | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1767 |
The cuckoo lipfish or striped lipfish ( Labrus mixtus , syn .: Labrus bimaculatus ) is a marine fish that grows in the northeastern Atlantic from the coast of southern Norway to Senegal , on the coasts of the Canary Islands , Madeira and the Azores , in the Mediterranean , the Skagerrak , the western North Sea (Coast of Great Britain) and occurs in the English Channel .
features
The cuckoo wrasse has an elongated body and a long, pointed head. Males grow up to 40 cm long, females stay smaller at 30 cm. At the terminal mouth there are thick, fleshy lips (name). The long dorsal fin is carried by spiny rays in the front area.
- Fins formula : dorsal XVI – XVIII / 11–12, pectoral 16.
- Scale formula : SL 45–48.
Sexually mature males and females are colored differently ( sexual dimorphism ). The males are brown or yellow and have blue longitudinal lines on the flanks, head, and fins. During the spawning season, they have a white spot on their foreheads. The females are red or orange and have three black and four white spots on their backs, under the back of the dorsal fin, arranged in a row.
Way of life
Cuckoo wrasse live singly or in pairs on algae-covered rocks or Posidonia meadows in water depths of 2 to 200 m. They are diurnal and hide in crevices or caves at night. Their diet consists mainly of crabs, but they also eat worms, molluscs and small fish.
Reproduction
The spawning season extends from May to July in the north-east Atlantic and from March to June in the Mediterranean. Cuckoo wrasse become sexually mature at the age of two and are protogynous hermaphrodites, which means that the female and only later the male sexual products mature in them. As males, they demarcate territories during the spawning season and build a nest of algae in shallow hollows, which they guard aggressively. The hatched fry are pelagic and move to the coasts with a size of 5 cm. Cuckoo wrasse can live up to 17 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 .
- Matthias Bergbauer, Bernd Humberg: What lives in the Mediterranean? 1999, Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, ISBN 3-440-07733-0 .
- Andreas Vilcinskas : Marine Fish of Europe. Features, distribution, way of life. Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-8944-0184-2 .
Web links
- Cuckoo Wrasse on Fishbase.org (English)
- Labrus mixtus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Pollard, D. & Afonso, P., 2008. Retrieved February 7, 2014.