Author: Gunnerus, 1765
Coryphaenoides rupestris Gunnerus, 1765
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Coryphaenoides rupestris Gunnerus, 1765 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: head fairly short and compressed, about 15% of body length; snout short and rounded, a scute at tip and angles, sub-orbital ridge not well developed, scales present above and below snout; chin barbel small, less than half eye diameter; mouth large, inferior, its cleft reaching behind eye, upper jaw with band of small teeth, the outer row enlarged, lower jaw with an irregular double row. First dorsal fin with 10-13 finrays, the second finray serrated, its origin a little behind pectoral fin base; second dorsal fin well separated from first, with very short finrays; pectoral fin with 16-19 finrays; pelvic fin with 8 finrays, the outer one elongated; origins of first dorsal, pectoral and pelvic fins in a straight line. Scales on trunk and tail large and very deciduous, with numerous slender retrorse spinules, those on head small and adherent. Colour: back brownish, flanks dull silver, fins dark grey or black; gular and branchiostegal membranes dark brown, as also mouth and gill cavity. Size: to 1.5 m TL.
Habitat: benthopelagic at 400-1,500 m, but sometimes caught in midwaters; shoals on continental slope in water of 3-8° C. Food: large bathypelagic animals, especially shrimps, also copepods, amphipods, euphausids, cephalopods and fishes. Reproduction: spring and autumn (north-eastern Atlantic).
Distribution: Atlantic, Bay of Biscay northward to Trondheim area and westward to the Faroes, off southern Iceland and south-western Greenland. Elsewhere, western North Atlantic (Davis Strait to New England).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Johnsen (1921, 1927), bathypelagic young.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.