The Arctic staghorn sculpin (''Gymnocanthus tricuspis'') is a species of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

belonging to 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 ...

Cottidae The Cottidae are a family of fish in the superfamily Cottoidea, the sculpins. It is the largest sculpin family, with about 275 species in 70 genera.Kane, E. A. and T. E. Higham. (2012)Life in the flow lane: differences in pectoral fin morphology ...

, the typical sculpins. This sculpin is found in the Arctic Ocean and the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Taxonomy

The Arctic staghorn sculpin was first formally described as ''Cottus tricuspis'' in 1830 by the Danish

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

Johan Reinhardt Johannes Christopher Hagemann Reinhardt (23 December 1778 – 31 October 1845), sometimes called J. C. H. Reinhardt, was a professor in zoology at the University of Copenhagen. Born in Rendal Municipality, Rendalen parish in Norway, his father, J ...

with the type locality given as

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''tricuspis'' means "three cusps", a reference to the three cusps on the upper spine on the

preoperculum This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes. A B C ...

Description

The Arctic staghorn sculpin has

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

s supported by between 10 and 12 spines and between 14 and 17 soft rays while the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

has 15 to 19 soft rays. It has a dark upper body with two blackish brown bands on the flanks being made up of dark blotches. There is an irregular line of dark spots underneath the

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 ...

and the underside is pale, yellowish in females, the males having roundish white spots on their bellies. The dorsal fins have light and dark stripes while the

caudal Caudal may refer to: Anatomy * Caudal (anatomical term) (from Latin ''cauda''; tail), used to describe how close something is to the trailing end of an organism * Caudal artery, the portion of the dorsal aorta of a vertebrate that passes into th ...

, anal and

pectoral fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish aquatic locomotion, swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the vertebral column ...

s are pale, with a yellow tip and 4-5 diagonal lines of dark spots in the pectoral fins. There are flat, bony plates on the back and the top of the head. The scales of the lateral line scales are tubules embedded in the skin. There are no, or just a few, cirri on the head or body. The uppermost spine on the

preoperculum This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes. A B C ...

is long and has 1 or more recurved spinules on its upper surface. This species is identified from its congeners by the lack of tubercles to the rear of the eyes and on the nape, a thinner interorbital space which has a width of less than 10% the length of the head and by the possession of many small plates between the eyes. This species has a maximum published

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 ...

of .

Distribution and habitat

The Arctic staghorn sculpin is found in the Arctic Ocean and the northeastern and northwestern Atlantic Ocean. In North American waters it is normally found as far south as the

Gulf of St Lawrence The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, ...

, occasionally reaching

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

. In the European waters it ranges from the eastern coasts of Greenland, Iceland, along the northern coast of Norway north to the

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

and the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

and

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...

. This is a benthic fish which lives in shallow water near to shore down to depths of around , although it is normally found at depths of less than . It has been recorded on a variety of substrates including mud, gravel and rock, burrowing into sand and muddy-sand substrates.

Biology

The Arctic staghorn sculpin is a predator of

polychaetes Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

krill Krill ''(Euphausiids)'' (: krill) are small and exclusively marine crustaceans of the order (biology), order Euphausiacea, found in all of the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian language, Norwegian word ', meaning "small ...

, benthic

amphipod Amphipoda () is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphipod species cur ...

s and echiurids. They in turn are preyed on by larger fishes such as

Arctic cod ''Arctogadus glacialis'', known also with ambiguous common names Arctic cod and polar cod, is an Arctic species of fish in the cod Family (biology), family Gadidae, related to the true Gadus, cod (genus ''Gadus''). ''Arctogadus glacialis'' is fo ...

Atlantic cod The Atlantic cod (: cod; ''Gadus morhua'') is a fish of the family Gadidae, widely consumed by humans. It is also commercially known as '' cod'' or ''codling''.Bering flounder and polar eelpout. They spawn in the late autumn to winter, the females laying 2,000 to 5,500 demersal eggs which hatch into pelagic larvae and juveniles which descend to the sea bed lengths of . They are sexually mature by 5–6 years old or .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q518665 Fish described in 1830 Arctic staghorn sculpin Taxa named by Johan Reinhardt