Author: Risso, 1810
Buglossidium luteum Risso, 1810
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Buglossidium luteum (Risso, 1810) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body oval. Upper eye more than its own diameter from dorsal profile of head; anterior nostril on blind side not enlarged, anterior nostril on eyed side with a backward-pointing tube, reaching to vertical through front margin of lower eye. Dorsal fin beginning on the anterior profile of head, with 65-78 finrays; pectoral fin on eyed side small, with 3-5 finrays, on blind side reduced to a single long and 1-2 short finrays; anal finrays 49-63; caudal fin united to dorsal and anal fins by a membrane. Lateral line with 55-70 pored scales, the supra-temporal branch not visible; scales rectangular, intercanalicular striae of Dicologoglossa type. Vertebrae 36-38. Colour: eyed side sandy yellow or light brown, with small brown or 2 grey spots; dorsal and anal fins with every fourth to seventh finray dark for most of its length. Size: to 15 cm SL.
Habitat: demersal on sandy bottoms of continental shelf and slope, at depths of 5-450 m (mainly at 10-40 m). Food: wide range of small bottom-living organisms, mainly crustaceans (copepods, amphipods, cumaceans), bivalve molluscs and polychaetes. Reproduction: spawns in February (Mediterranean), March, April-June (Bay of Biscay) and July-August (western part English Channel, North Sea, western Ireland).
Distribution: eastern Atlantic (Iceland and Scotland southward, also North Sea, Kattegat and Baltic) and Mediterranean (including Adnatic, Sea of Marmara, Bosphorus).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Holt, 1891: 460, pl. 47 (fig. 9-10), pl. 52 (fig. 46-52) | Ehrenbaum, 1897: pl. 5 (fig. 35), pl. 6 (fig. 31-34) | Varagnolo, 1964: 268, pl. III (fig. 14) | Lee, 1966: fig. 4.
Otoliths (sagitta). Chaine, 1936: 190, pl. 12 | Bauzá-Rullán, 1956b: 124, pl. 8 (fig. 31-39 and 127), pl. 9 (fig. 48-50) | Schmidt, 1968: 63, pl. 13 (fig. 180), pl. 24.