Author: Euphrasen, 1786
Taurulus bubalis Euphrasen, 1786
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Taurulus bubalis (Euphrasen, 1786) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: upper preopercular spine long, greater than eye diameter and reaching to or beyond opercular flap. Upper jaw with a small flap of skin at corner of mouth. D VII-X + 10-14; A 8-10: P 14-16; 1.1. 29-33. Vertebrae 29-30. Colour: olive-brown, with 4 dark cross-bands. yellowish below; belly orange-red with bluish-white spots in breeding males; fins with dark bars or stripes. Size: to 17.5 cm SL, usually 12-15 cm.
Habitat: benthic in tide-pools and inshore waters on rocky bottoms or among algae at 0-30 (100) m. Food: mysids, amphipods (gammarids), decapods, polychaetes, molluscs, ophiurids and fishes. Reproduction: spawns February-April; eggs demersal, greenish or reddish-yellow, diameter 1.5-1.8 mm, laid in small clumps in rock crevices or other sheltered places, e.g. among algae.
Distribution: Iceland, the Shetlands, European Atlantic coasts from Murmansk southward to Portugal, also Baltic Sea northward to Gulf of Finland and northern Mediterranean coasts eastward to Gulf of Genoa.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Collett, 1880: 13 | McIntosh and Mastermann, 1897: 129-131, 462, pl. 1 (fig. 4), pl. V (fig. 9) | Ehrenbaum, 1904: 137-140, pl. III (fig. 910), pl. V (fig. 36); 1905: 58-59, fig. 23 | Le Danois, 1911: 144-146, fig. 1-2 | Ehrenbaum, 1932, pl. 359, fig. 2-4 | Bruun, 1941: 323-329 | Rass, 1941:10, fig. 4, pl. 2; 1949: 25, 40-42 | Thomopoulos and Bauchot, 1957: 120-126, fig. 1-2
Duncker, 1960: 302-304 | Kändler, 1961: 55, pl. 4.
Otoliths (sagitta). Fryd, 1901: 20 | Frost, 1929: 262, pl. III (fig. 24) | Chaine and Duvergier, 1934: 159, pl. V | Bauzá-Rullán, 1958: 192, pl. X (fig. 17) | Schmidt, 1968: 56-57, pl. 11 (fig. 158), pl. 23.