Author: (Euphrasen, 1788)
Lepidopus caudatus (Euphrasen, 1788)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Lepidopus caudatus (Euphrasen, 1788) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: see generic characters. D IX + 90-107; A II + 60-65, P 12, V I (I + 2 in juveniles). Colour: silvery, dusky at fin edges. Size: to 205 cm SL.
Habitat: benthopelagic on continental shelf and along its edge down to 400 m; usually over sandy and muddy bottoms at 100 250 m. Commercially exploited in Portugal and Morocco. Food: fishes, crustaceans, squids. Reproduction: end of winter to early spring off North African coast, mostly summer to autumn in Adriatic sea.
Distribution: eastern North Atlantic from France to Senegal, including the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries and offshore banks; individual stragglers as far north as Iceland; western Mediterranean. Elsewhere, in southern hemisphere (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Strabberg, 1918, in Schmidt and Strabberg: 7-16, fig.
Otoliths (sagitta). Koken, 1884: 539, pl. 10 (fig. 11) | Frost, 1928: 328-329, pl. 12 (fig 4) | Bauzá-Rullán, 1959: pl. 3 (fig. 37-42).