Author: Linnaeus, 1758
Ciliata mustela Linnaeus, 1758
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Ciliata mustela (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: No small supplementary fringing barbels on upper jaw. Mouth small, extending to just behind eye, upper and lower jaws less than half of head length. First dorsal finrays 1, second dorsal finrays 47-55; first anal finrays 40-44. Vertebrae 46-48. Colour: reddish-brown to dark brown, sometimes almost black. Size: to 45 cm SL, usually 25 cm.
Habitat: littoral, between tide marks, on rocky shores, in intertidal pools on sand, larger fishes beneath low-tide mark on muddy, sandy and shell gravel grounds. Behaviour: little known. Food: mainly crustaceans, gammarids, amphipods, small crabs and shrimps, occasionally small fish. Reproduction: winter and spring, offshore.
Distribution: north-eastern Atlantic from Portugal to Finnmark and Iceland, Kattegat to Øre Sund.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Ehrenbaum, 1909: 284, fig. 102.
Otoliths (sagitta). Fryd, 1901: 29 | Sanz Echeverría, 1935: 213, pl. XXX (fig. 15).