Author: Vaillant, 1888
Bathygadus melanobranchus Vaillant, 1888
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Bathygadus melanobranchus Vaillant, 1888 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: head large, about 15-20% SL, snout blunt, mouth terminal, lower jaw slightly projecting; eye large, 24.7-34.2% head length; chin barbel absent. Pyloric caeca 24-35 (usually 30). No elongate finrays; first dorsal fin with 11-13 finrays, second dorsal fin beginning just behind it; pectoral fin with 15-17 finrays; pelvic fin with 8 finrays (rarely 7); insertions of first dorsal, pectoral and pelvic fins in a straight line, usually vertical. Scales without spinules. No light organ. Colour: body light brown, fin membranes, branchiostegal membrane, gill chamber and body cavity black, gill filaments with a dark basal membrane and a dark median stripe along outer elements. Size: to 50 cm TL.
Habitat: benthopelagic at 450-2,650 m, mainly at 700-1,400 m. Food: mostly planktonic animals (copepods, amphipods, mysids, chaetognaths and small shrimps). Reproduction: no data.
Distribution: Atlantic northward to Irish continental shelf; elsewhere, southward to Cape of Good Hope, also western Atlantic (Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, off Surinam).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. No data.
Otoliths (sagitta). Vaillant, 1888: 248, pl. XVII (fig. 1).