Cyema Gunther, 1878
Diagnosis: body compressed, band-like; trunk and tail of same length. Anterior nostrils tubular, posterior nostrils pore-like, close together in front of small eyes. Jaws produced into a greatly elongate and delicate beak; teeth minute, sharp, close-set, rasp-like on jaws and vomer. Gill openings small, lateral. Dorsal and anal fins well developed, beginning at the same level, confined to tail region and projecting as a pair of pointed lobes beyond caudal fin, which consists of a few short rays; pectoral fins present; pelvic fins absent. Lateral line with 90 pores. Vertebrae about 80. Colour: violet velvet-black or dark brown. Size: to 131 mm.
Habitat: bathy- and abyssopelagic down to 5,100 m. Food: carnivorous. Reproduction: very few data; leptocephalus larva with body very short and deep, easily recognized by having the fewest myomeres of any known eel larva, around 80.
Distribution: eastern Atlantic, from Gibraltar southward to the Azores and Madeira; not recorded from Mediterranean. Elsewhere, southward to southern Africa and widely distributed in all oceans.
Species 1.
Species of this genus in the program:
Cyema atrum