Capros Lacepede, 1802
Diagnosis: body fairly deep and compressed, its depth more than one and a half times in SL. Eye large, snout as long as eye or longer, head profile concave over eye; mouth very protractile, forming a short tube when protruded. Pectoral fins rounded, pelvic fins set below them, with I + 5 finrays (the branched finrays fairly stout), dorsal fin with IX-X + 23-25 finrays, the spines long and strong, and fin with III + 22-24 finrays, the spines stout and short; third dorsal and first anal spines only a little longer and stronger than the others. Body covered with small, rough (ctenoid) scales. Colour: body deep red, sometimes with yellow bars; much paler and more yellow in fishes from 200 m or shallower. Size: to 16 cm SL, usually 5-13 cm.
Habitat: close to bottom at 40 to more than 600 m, mainly at 100- 400 m over rock or coral, but also trawled over sandy ground in the southern part of its range; occasional irruptions into shallow water; gregarious. Food: crustaceans (copepods, mysid shrimps off south-western Ireland), or worms, molluscs and crustaceans (Mediterranean). Reproduction: June-August (south-western Ireland), spring and summer (Mediterranean).
Distribution: Atlantic, northward to western Scotland, occasionally to the Shetlands, Skagerrak and western Norway, also Mediterranean (mainly western part). Elsewhere, southward to Senegal.
Species 1.
Species of this genus in the program:
Capros aper