''Bothrocara brunneum'', the twoline eelpout, is a

bathydemersal Demersal fish, also known as groundfish, live and feed on or near the bottom of ocean, seas or lakes (the demersal zone).Walrond Carl . "Coastal fish - Fish of the open sea floor"Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009 T ...

species of fish of the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Zoarcidae The eelpouts are the ray-finned fish family (biology), family Zoarcidae. As the common name suggests, they are somewhat eel-like in appearance. All of the 300 species are ocean, marine and mostly bottom-dwelling, some at great depths. Eelpouts a ...

. The species is the only fish of the

eelpout The eelpouts are the ray-finned fish family Zoarcidae. As the common name suggests, they are somewhat eel-like in appearance. All of the 300 species are marine and mostly bottom-dwelling, some at great depths. Eelpouts are predominantly found i ...

s to have two

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

s and short blunt-ended

gill raker Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of th ...

s.Fitch & Lavenberg (1968), p. 77. The species has a wide range across the northeastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, between the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea ( , ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre, p=ˈbʲerʲɪnɡəvə ˈmorʲe) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasse ...

and the shores of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

,Fitch & Lavenberg (1968), p. 78. and from

Attu Island Attu (, ) is an island in the Near Islands (part of the Aleutian Islands chain). It is one of the westernmost points of the U.S. state of Alaska. The island became uninhabited in 2010, making it the largest uninhabited island that is part of th ...

to the Baja California Peninsula. It inhabits the bottom of seas or oceans and is generally found in a depth ranging between and . The species has also been studied to have shown a relationship between the season and its population increase and decrease, with the summer seasons being its highest and the winter seasons being the decrease in population size. It has been hypothesized from an analysis of stomach content that the species feeds mainly on bottom-dwelling creatures.

Etymologically Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

, ''Bothrocara'' stands for "cavity head" and ''brunneum'' for "brown", named respectively after the appearance of the head and the tinted brown colour of the body.Fitch & Lavenberg (1968), p. 79. It was named "twoline eelpout" for its unique two lateral lines.

Description

The twoline eelpout has been found to have two

s, the only one of its

, and also has a small blunt-ended

. Its

dorsal Dorsal (from Latin ''dorsum'' ‘back’) may refer to: * Dorsal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location referring to the back or upper side of an organism or parts of an organism * Dorsal, positioned on top of an aircraft's fuselage The fus ...

and anal fins are covered in a gelatinous tissue. Twoline eelpouts are bathydemersal (below 650 feet), and can generally be found at a depth between and . The fecundity is about 215–329 eggs for females measuring

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

.Ferry (1994), p. 21.

Feeding habits

It has been hypothesized that, judging by an analysis of

stomach The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the upper gastrointestinal tract of Human, humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The Ancient Greek name for the stomach is ''gaster'' which is used as ''gastric'' in medical t ...

content, the species feeds primarily on bottom-dwelling creatures, habitually eating anything it comes across that has food value and that is small enough to ingest.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

''Bothrocara brunneum''
at Encyclopedia of Life.
''Bothrocara brunneum''
at ZipCodeZoo. {{Taxonbar, from=Q2703177 Lycodinae Fish of the Pacific Ocean Taxa named by Tarleton Hoffman Bean Fish described in 1890