Author: Linnaeus, 1758
Triglopsis quadricornis Linnaeus, 1758
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Triglopsis quadricornis (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body slender, depressed anteriorly, with long, slender caudal peduncle. Head broad, slightly flattened on top, with low post-occular and occipital protuberances (sometimes becoming spongy knobs). Soft dorsal fin higher than spinous portion, tips of rays produced beyond fin membrane. D VI-X + 11-17; A 12-17; P 13-18. Vertebrae 39-42. Colour: uniformly greenish or brownish-grey, without bright spots or bands; knobs on head yellowish-grey, belly light and without blotches. Size: to 36.5 cm SL, usually 15-25 cm.
Habitat: benthic on soft bottoms at 0-20 m, rarely deeper, in marine coastal (brackish) waters, estuaries and some lakes. Food: isopods, mysids, amphipods and small fishes (smelts, Arctic cods, capelins, herrings, etc.). Reproduction: spawns in winter; eggs greenish-black, rarely reddish, about 2,000-18,000, diameter 2.8-3.0 mm.
Distribution: Baltic Sea westward to Kattegat, shores of northern Finland, White Sea, Barents Sea from Kola Bay to western coasts of Novaya Zemlya; also, eastern coasts of Greenland northward to 74° N. Elsewhere, Kara Sea eastward to Alaska, Arctic Canada, Labrador and western Greenland, also Bering Sea southward to Anadyr and Bristol Bay. Freshwater forms in Siberian and North American lakes.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Sundewall, 1855: 7, pl. I (fig. 5-8) | Jensen, 1904: 237-238, pl. XI (fig. 2-3) | Ehrenbaum, 1905: 60-61, fig. 24 | Knipowitch, 1907: 2-6, pl. 1 (fig. 1-6) | Johansen, 1912: 646-649, pl. XLVI (fig. 11-13) | Nordquist, 1914: 36 43, fig. 22-25 | Rass, 1941:10 | Alekseyeva, 1949: 183-184, fig. 8 | Ponomareva, 1949: 196 | Rass, 1949: 12, 41-42, fig. 18 | Pokrovskaja, 1951: 140-146 | Andriashev, 1954: 390 | Zvjagina, 1963: 3-10, fig. 1-3 | Westin, 1968: 401-407.
Otoliths (sagitta). Chaine and Duvergier, 1934: 166, pl. V.