Author: Gilbert and Burke, 1912
Icelus spatula Gilbert and Burke, 1912
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Icelus spatula Gilbert and Burke, 1912 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body with a row of spiny plates below bases of dorsal fins, the area above naked. Head less broad and deep than in I. bicornis, granulations less well developed, but occipital spine stronger and more acute. D VIII-IX + (18) 19-22; A (13) 14-17 (18); P (16) 17-19. Lateral line reaching to caudal fin base, 40-47 pores, bony plates along lateral line, but without spines below each pore. Urogenital papilla in males with a short claw-like appendage pointing forward. Colour: young with 2 dark blotches on body, which break up into small dark brown spots in adults; spinous dorsal fin with 1-2 round dark patches, soft part with a few comparatively broad dark stripes; upper part of pectoral fin with 4-6 dark transverse stripes; anal and pelvic fins colourless; caudal fin with irregular spots. Size: to 11.8 cm SL, usually 6-9 cm.
Habitat: benthic on sand or sandy-mud bottoms with stones at (10) 30-70 (228) m, with temperatures of -1 .75 to 7.8 °C and salinities of 24.7-34.2. Food: comparatively large bottom invertebrates (Pandalus, Spirontocaris, amphipods, polychaetes), rarely small molluscs. Reproduction: spawns at end of August to September; eggs demersal, about 1,000-1,500, light yellow, diameter 1.4 mm.
Distribution: south-eastern part of Barents Sea. Elsewhere, Kara Sea eastward to Arctic Canada and western coasts of Greenland; also, western North Atlantic, from Labrador to Cape Cod, and North Pacific (Bering Sea), northward to Thule.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Andriashev, 1954: 361.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.