Author: Lea, 1913
Anarchas euryurus Lea, 1913
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Anarchias euryurus (Lea, 1913) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body very elongate, not very deep (maximum depth 4-5% TL), anus well before midpoint of body. Head long; anterior nostril tubular; posterior nostril like an opening with two slit-like pores, placed in a slight depression contiguous to upper eye margin, the upper pore (nasal pore) slightly behind the other (last supra-orbital pore). Teeth conical, sharp, slightly curved backward, biserial in both jaws, the inner row with much larger teeth; 5-7 premaxillary teeth, long, straight and acute, inserted obliquely backward; 4-6 squat conical teeth on vomer. Gill openings restricted to a small roundish lateral pore. Dorsal and anal fins rudimentary, confined to posterior part of body and confluent with caudal fin; pectoral and pelvic fins absent. Vertebrae 116-119. Colour: variable, young with background dark ochre with irregular yellow patches; throat, dorsal and anal fins light; adults with body ferruginous brown, head spotted with yellow, posterior nostril contour light coloured. Size: to 25 cm.
Habitat: benthic on shelf over coarse gravel at 10-100 m. Food: no data. Reproduction: in warm hydrological season; leptocephalus larva, described by Lea (1913) as Leptocephalus euryurus, identified by Blache (1977).
Distribution: Mediterranean (Nice) and eastern Atlantic, the Azores and Madeira. Elsewhere, southward to Gulf of Guinea.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Grassi, 1913: 197, pl. 12 (fig. 36) | Lea, 1913: 25, fig. 21-22, pl. 4 (fig. 4) (Leptocephalus euryurus) | Roule and Angel, 1921: 8 (young stages) | Ancona, 1931d: 150, fig. 156 | Castle, 1969: 27 (Uropterygius concolor).
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.