Author: Raitt, 1934
Ammodytes marinus Raitt, 1934
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Ammodytes marinus Raitt, 1934 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: plicae 140-150. Dorsal rays 56-63; anal rays 29-33. Scales absent from a median band anterior to the dorsal fin and from the musculature at the base of caudal fin; belly scales loosely arranged, not in chevrons. Vertebrae 64-75. Colour: a sharp division on the sides of head, between dark upper and paler lower areas. Size: to 25 cm SL.
Habitat: abundant offshore, less common in inshore littoral habitats (mostly as juveniles). Alternates between lying buried in the sandy substrate and swimming in schools in the water mass. Food: zooplankton and some large diatoms. Reproduction: winter spawner; ripe adults occurring November-February, post-larvae February-May and occasionally to June (North Sea).
Distribution: eastern North Atlantic from 74° N (Novaya Zemblya and Bear Is.) to 49° N (Channel Islands, western English Channel), including eastern Greenland, Iceland, Barents Sea (but not the White Sea) and the Baltic (but not the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Ehrenbaum, 1904: fig. 84-85 (as A. tobianus); 1909: 298, fig. 106a-b-c (as A. tobianus) | Corbin and Vati, 1949: 297, pl. I (fig. 2) | Einarsson, 1951: 1-75, pl. 1.
Otoliths (sagitta). Kandler, 1941: 96, fig. 16 | Macer, 1966, pl. 1a-d.