Author: Risso, 1810
Coelorhynchus coelorhynchus Risso, 1810
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Coelorinchus caelorhincus (Risso, 1810) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: snout about one-third head length, sharply pointed, with prominent bony ridge extending back below eye, the latter large (greater than snout length); chin barbel small; mouth inferior, small and protractile. No outer gillrakers on first arch. First dorsal fin with 10-11 finrays, the second of which is a smooth flexible spine; second dorsal fin well separated from first, with very short finrays; pelvic fin with 7 finrays. Scales with small spinules moderately inclined in divergent rows. Pyloric caeca 17-23 (usually 17-19), simple. An oval or lanceolate black scaleless patch on midline of belly, usually more than two-thirds eye diameter. Colour: tawny to swarthy, with some purplish tinges; branchiostegal and gular membranes blackish, mouth pallid, gill cavity and pharynx black. Size: to 38 cm TL.
Habitat: benthopelagic at 140-630 m, usually 200-500 m. Food: benthic invertebrates, mainly polychaete worms and gammarids, also copepods, mysids, euphausids, shrimps and gastropods. Reproduction: no data.
Distribution: Atlantic northward to southern Norway and across to the Shetlands, the Faroes, off southern Iceland and south-eastern Greenland, also Mediterranean. Elsewhere, southward to the Cape Verde Is., also western North Atlantic (as C. coelorhynchus carminatus).
Note: Several subspecies recognized, but only C. coelorhynchus coelorhynchus in Clofnam area (to which the description given here applies).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Sanzo, 1933b, 1933c.
Otoliths (sagitta). Nolf, 1977: 37, pl. 11, fig. 1-8.