Author: Norman, 1939
Odontomacrurus murrayi Norman, 1939
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Odontomacrurus murrayi Norman, 1939 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: head length about 10% of body length, head and body deep, rapidly tapering to pointed tail. Snout blunt, upper head profile steeply rounded; eye relatively small (especially in larger fishes); mouth terminal, large, upper jaw reaching well back beyond eye, 15-20 large pointed teeth in upper jaw, 4-7 large retrorse teeth in lower jaw; no chin barbel; gillrakers 5-7, spiny, gill filaments short; branchiostegal rays 6. First dorsal fin with 8-10 finrays, the second finray smooth, origin of fin over or before pectoral fin base; second dorsal fin beginning some distance from first and well behind anal fin origin; pectoral fin with 9-11 finrays; pelvic fin with 7-8 finrays. Scales with rather slender upright spinules. Pyloric caeca 12, branched. Anus in centre of quite large and black naked area between pelvic fin bases and anal fin origin, and a small naked black fossa in front. Swimbladder regressed in adults. Colour: generally dark brown; juveniles to 18 cm light with a pattern of brown spots on head (especially behind eyes), trunk and tail. Size: to at least 50 cm TL.
Habitat: meso- to bathypelagic. Food: remains of fish found in one stomach. Reproduction: no data.
Distribution: the Azores Madeira and off Morocco. Elsewhere, southward to the Gulf of Guinea, also western North Atlantic, western Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Juvenile spotted phase, Maul and Koefoed (1950), Maul (1951), Koefoed (1953), Marshall (1964), as above.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.