Author: Linnaeus, 1758
Histrio histrio Linnaeus, 1758
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Histrio histrio (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body and fins covered with numerous cutaneous filaments. Pectoral fin lobe free from body. Pelvic fins large, length greater than 25% SL. Outermost rays of caudal fin simple, 7 innermost bifurcate. Dorsal finrays III + 11-13; anal finrays 6-8; pectoral finrays 9-11. Colour: colour and colour pattern highly variable; body, fins, and oral cavity streaked and/or mottled with brown and yellow interspersed with small round spots or thin white lines. Size: to 141 mm SL.
Habitat: pelagic in floating sargassum weed. Behaviour: capable of extremely rapid colour change from light to dark and vice versa, simulating surrounded sargassum weed. Highly voracious and cannibalistic.Food: no data. Reproduction: no data.
Distribution: tropical to temperate waters of Atlantic and Indo-Pacific as far west as Guam. In Clofnam area known from the Azores and Vardø, northern Norway.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Roule and Angel, 1930: 117-119, pl. VI (fig. 154-155, 165) (Antennariidae). For the nest, cf. L. Agassiz, 1872; Vaillant, 1887; Gudger, 1937; Parin, 1968: fig. 12, 22.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.