Sea butterfly
| Sea butterfly | ||||||||||||
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Sea butterfly ( Blennius ocellaris ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Blennius ocellaris | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The sea butterfly ( Blennius ocellaris ) belongs to the family of slimy fish (Blenniidae) and is found in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
features
The sea butterfly has a slender, elongated and laterally flattened body and like all representatives of the slimy fish it has no scales. It reaches a body length of up to 20 centimeters. The head with the terminal mouth is large and rounded, the eyes are high above. There is a lobed skin tentacle in front of the front edge of the eye. The body is light brown to olive in color with an irregular dark brown stripe made of wide cross bars.
The dorsal fin extends from the base of the head to just before the transition to the one-piece tail fin and has an indentation in the area of the transition between the 11 hard and 14 to 15 limb or soft rays. The front part is greatly enlarged and has a large dark blue, lightly lined eye spot . The thread-like pelvic fins are throaty, so they lie in front of the pectoral fins and consist of one hard and three soft rays. The paired pectoral fins have 12 fin rays and the anal fin 2 hard rays and 16 soft rays. The swim bladder is absent from all slimy fish.
distribution
Sea butterflies are found in the eastern Atlantic from the English Channel to the coast of Morocco , in the western part of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea .
Way of life
Sea butterflies live on the ground in rocky regions at depths of 10 to 400 meters, especially in areas with sand, shill or mud bottom. The fish eat small invertebrates on the bottom.
They spawn in spring and summer from May to August. During this time the males demarcate territories. The eggs are placed in empty mussel shells and under stones and guarded by the male (active brood care ).
literature
- Andreas Vilcinskas : Fish. Central European freshwater species and marine fish from the North and Baltic Seas. BLV, Munich 2000; P. 184. ISBN 3-405-15848-6 .
Web links
- Sea butterfly on Fishbase.org (English)