Author: Risso, 1810
Aphia minuta Risso, 1810
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Aphia minuta (Risso, 1810) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: see genus. Adult males with large canine teeth and longer pelvic disc. Dl V (IV-VI); D2 I + 12 (11-13); A I + 13-14 (11-15); P 17-18 (15-19). Scales in lateral series 19-25 (18-25) (easily lost). Vertebrae 27 (26-28). Colour: body transparent, more or less reddish, with chromatophorcs along bases of median fins and on head. Size: to 5.8 cm (males) and 5.3 cm (females).
Habitat: nektonic, inshore and estuarine, surface to 70-80 m, over sand. mud, eel-grass, etc. Food: zooplankton, especially copepods, cirripede larvae and mysids.
Reproduction: May (central Adriatic), May-July (Varna, Black Sea). June-August (Oslofjord). Sexually mature by 1 year, adults die after breeding. Lifespan 'annual'.
Distribution: eastern Atlantic, from western Baltic and Trondheim,: Norway, to Morocco; Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Collett, 1878: 319 | Holt and Byrne, 1898: 338 | Holt and Byrne, 1899: 44 | Ehrenbaum, 1905: 100, fig. 44 | Lo Bianco, 1909: 722 | Guitel, 1910: 1 | Clark, 1914: 374 | Fage, 1918: 96 | Petersen, 1919: 60, pl. 1 (fig. 23), pl. 2 (fig. 20-21) | Padoa, 1953: 674, fig. 563 | Vodjanitzki and Kazanova, 1954: fig. 55 | Russell, 1976: 274, fig. 65.
Otoliths (sagitta). Frost, 1929a: 127, pl. II (fig. 2).
Subspecies
Aphia minuta atlanica De Buen, 1931: larger, total lengths of adults 4.6-5.8 cm (males), 4.4-5.3 cm (females); Atlantic.
Aphia minuta mediterranea De Buen, 1931: smaller adults, 3.7-4.5 cm (males), 3.0-4.5 (females), Mediterranean.