Author: Goode and Bean, 1883
Alepocephalus agassizii Goode and Bean, 1883
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Alepocephalus agassizii Goode and Bean, 1883 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body quite elongate and compressed, its greatest depth at base of pectoral fin. Head large, greater than body depth; eye larger than snout, its hind margin before midpoint of head; tip of upper jaw reaching to about hind margin of pupil; gillrakers 7-10 + 1 + 14-20 = 23-29. Pyloric caeca 15-23. Dorsal finrays 15-18, pectoral finrays 10-12, pelvic finrays 6-8, anal finrays 16-18, its origin about opposite dorsal fin origin. Scales very small, 80- 90 in lateral line. Colour: purplish-brown in trawlcaught fishes, but black when skin and scales intact. Size: to 79 cm SL, usually 50-70 cm.
Habitat: engybenthic over sand and clay bottoms at about 600 2,400 m; gregarious. Food: mostly ctenophores, but also crustaceans, echinoderms. polychaetes. Reproduction: a female of 64.2 cm had 9,150 eggs up to 2.8 mm in diameter.
Distribution: isolated records between Iceland and Greenland and to the west of the British Isles. Elsewhere, in the eastern Atlantic southward to 21° 37.3' N, 18° 4.5' W (unpublished) and in the western Atlantic from Davis Strait southward to 15° N.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. No data.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.