Author: Reinhardt, 1840
Icelus bicornis Reinhardt, 1840
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Icelus bicornis (Reinhardt, 1840) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body with a row of spiny plates below bases of dorsal fins, usually with small bony knobs covering the area below the soft dorsal fin. Head broad and deep, more so than in I. spatula and granulations more developed, but occipital spine lower and less acute. D VII-X + 17-23; A 12-17; P 15-19. Lateral line not reaching to base of caudal fin, 23-41 pores; small bony knobs covering interspace between dorsal fin origin and dorsal row of bony scutes. Large urogenital papilla in males, its distal part awl-like and at least as long as base. Colour: yellowish with brown spots, most numerous on back; narrow stripes on soft dorsal, pectoral and caudal fins, with dark spots on finrays. Size: to 15.7 cm SL, usually 8-9 cm.
Habitat: benthic on muddy, sandy or rocky bottoms or among algae (Laminaria, Delesseria) at (0) 40-180 (560) m, with temperatures of -1.8 to 8.8 °C, but mainly near or below O °C (but above 3 °C in southern regions) and salinities usually 33-35, rarely 25-29. Food: benthic polychaetes (Lumbriconereis, Harmothoe, Phyllodocidae), crustaceans (amphipods, Mesidothea, Hyppolyte, Boreophausia), large hypereids (Phascolosoma). Reproduction: spawns in August-October; eggs demersal, about 150-700, diameter more than 3 mm.
Distribution: eastern coasts of Greenland to 82° N, Iceland, Jan Mayen I., Norwegian coasts from Bohuslän northward to Spitzbergen and Franz Joseph Land, eastward to White Sea and Novaya Zemlya. Elsewhere, western part of Kara Sea; eastern Siberian Sea and western coasts of Canadian Arctic; also western North Atlantic from Ellesmere I. south to Ungava Bay.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Jensen, 1904: 239, pl. XI (fig. 5) | Ehrenbaum, l905: 63-64, fig. 26 | Kendall, l910: 508 | Johansen, 1912: 655, pl. XLVI (fig. 10) | Rass, 1941: 10; 1949: 12, 25, 41-42, fig. 18 | Andriashev, 1954: 365.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.