Author: Fabricius, 1780
Myoxocephalus scorpioides Fabricius, 1780
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Myoxocephalus scorpioides (Fabricius, 1780) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: head and body slightly compressed, but broad anteriorly; skin tentacles on post-orbital and occipital parts of head, but no bony finger-shaped ridges behind portorbital tubercules; second preopercular spine at least half of upper spine. Anterior part of lateral line with lower canalicules longer than upper. Caudal peduncle relatively long and slender. D VIII-IX + 14-17; A 11-13; P 14-16; 1.1. 36-42. Colour: upper parts blackish-brown (paler in females), flanks with dark crossbands (fainter in males, which have dark bordered white or silvery irregular spots under pectoral fins and above the anal fin); breast and belly with dark spots in males and a broad white band on reddishorange from pelvic base to anus; lower lip spotted in males (dark in females); pelvic fins with 2-3 dark cross-bands; pectoral finrays blackish-brown in males, the membrane with 4-5 transverse rows of translucent spots (some light bands in females); white blotches or stripes on dorsal and anal fins. Size: to 30 cm SL, usually 12-20 cm.
Habitat: benthic on rocky bottoms among algae (Fucus) at 0-25 (40) m, with summer temperatures of 5-8 °C and below O °C in winter; can tolerate salinities of about 17, perhaps lower. Food: small benthic amphipods. Reproduction: spawns in autumn; eggs demersal, about 1.3 mm m dlameter.
Distribution: south-eastern coasts of Greenland. Elsewhere, western North Atlantic (Labrador to St Lawrence), Arctic seas (Chaun Bay eastward to Greenland) and northern Pacific (southward to Cape Navarin and Bristol Bay in Bering Sea).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Andriashev, 1954: 383.
Otoliths (sagitta). No data.