Author: (Linnaeus, 1758)
Sebastes marinus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Sebastes marinus (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: dorsal fin with 14-16 (usually 15) spines and 13-16 (usually 14-15) rays; anal fin with 3 spines and 7-10 (mostly 8) rays; pectoral fin with 18-21 (mostly 19) rays; 31-39 (more often 34) scales on lateral line. Vertebrae 30-32. Colour: bright red with a dusky area on posterior part of opercle. Size: to 100 cm, usually 35-55 cm.
Habitat: the juveniles are living in the fjords, bays and inshore waters; the adults are found off the coast at 100-1,000 m. At great depths, fishes have a larger size than in shallow waters. Behaviour: gregarious throughout life. Food: in summer, mostly euphausiids; in autumn and winter, herrings; in spring, capelins, herrings, euphausiids and ctenophores. Reproduction: ovoviviparous; insemination of the females in August-September (Barents Sea) and from October to January (off Iceland and Greenland); fertilization of the ripe oocytes during February and March; release of larvae from April to June or even to August.
Distribution: in the Clofnam area, from the Kattegat and the northern part of the North Sea, northward to the western coast of Spitsbergen, southern part of the Barents Sea eastward to the Kanin Banks and Novaya Zemlya shoals, rare in the White Sea, common around Iceland and along the south part of the eastern coast of Greenland. Elsewhere, along western coast of Greenland, along North American coast southward to Flemish Cape, Grand Banks and Gulf of St Laurence.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Holt, 1898: 550 | Le Gall, 1932, in C.I.E.M., 19291938, no. 346bis, 5 fig.
Otoliths (sagitta). Scott, 1906: 54, pl. IIIB (fig. 50-52) | Chaine and Duvergier, 1934: 203, pl. 8 | Schroeder, 1956: 133, pl. 5 (fig. 1).