Description

Dorsal spines (total): 50 - 54; Dorsal soft rays (total): 0; Anal soft rays: 35 - 40. Snout blunt; mouth frog-like. With a large fringed tentacle above each eye, a smaller one in front and others on top of head and on the anterior dorsal fin spines. First anal fin ray a short flexible spine. Lateral line represented by a dorsal and a mediolateral branch of neuromasts (the former begins as a short canal, with 4-5 pores.

Common Names

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Teleostei

Order: Perciformes/Zoarcoidei

Family: Stichaeidae

Genus: Chirolophis

Species: Chirolophis ascanii (Walbaum, 1792)

Climate Zone

Location

• Northeast Atlantic: Norwegian coast to Finmarken and Waranger Fjord, occasionally Murman coast, rare in Skagerrak, Kattegat and Öresund, around Helgoland, also British Isles; also the Orkneys, Faroes, Shetlands and Iceland (Ref. 4782). Northwest Atlantic: Canada (Ref. 7251).

Biology

Usually over rocks and among seaweeds, never in intertidal zone, at 20 m, but descends from 100-280 m (Ref. 4782). Benthic (Ref. 58426). Feeds on bottom invertebrates (small mollusks, polychaetes, hydroids, sponges), also algae (Ref. 4782). Spawns in October - December (Ref. 35388).

Habitat

benthopelagic

Conservation Status

Not Evaluated

Threat to Humans

Harmless