Author: Costa, 1846
Cynoponticus ferox Costa, 1846
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Cynoponticus ferox Costa, 1846 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body elongate, scaleless, compressed posteriorly; prominent conical snout; eye large, oval. Anterior nostril tubular in a depression of upper jaw, near the tip of snout; posterior nostril a collared pore before eye. Mouth large, rictus well behind level of posterior edge of eye. In both jaws, a middle row of incisiform teeth and several rows of minute caniniform teeth, bigger anteriorly; on the vomer a median line of strongly compressed and blunt teeth, triangular in lateral view, with more or less inconspicuous basal cusps, and minute caniniform teeth at each side. Tongue largely adnate. Gill openings large, latero-ventral, isthmus narrow. Vertical fins continuous with caudal fin; dorsal fin origin slightly before pectoral fin base; pectoral fin about 2.0-2.6 in head. Lateral line a series of palmate and digitate organs, a minute pore at the end of each digitation (their complexity increasing with age): 36-40 before anus, 9-10 before pectoral fins; no supra-temporal pore. Vertebrae 140-147. Colour: brown, paler ventrally, median fins with a narrow black margin. Size: to 150 cm.
Habitat: benthic on the shelf on sand and muddy bottoms at 10- 100 m. Food: carnivorous. Reproduction: leptocephalus unknown.
Distribution: eastern Atlantic northward to Gibraltar, also western Mediterranean (Elba, Ischia, Portoferraio). Elsewhere, southward to Angola.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. No data.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.