The streaked gurnard (''Chelidonichthys lastoviza''), also known as the African gurnard or rock gurnard, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

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 ...

Triglidae ''Triglidae'', commonly known as gurnards or sea robins, are a Family (biology), family of bottom-feeding scorpaeniform ray-finned fish. The gurnards are distributed in temperate and tropical seas worldwide. Taxonomy ''Triglidae'' was first des ...

, the gurnards and sea robins. This fish is found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and western Indian Ocean. This species is of commercial importance as a food fish.

Taxonomy

The streaked gurnard was first formally described as ''Trigla lastoviza'' in 1788 by the French

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre Abbé Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre (1752, Aveyron – 20 September 1804, Saint-Geniez-d'Olt) was a French zoology, zoologist who contributed sections on cetaceans, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects to the ''Tableau encyclopéd ...

with the type locality given as

Split, Croatia Split (, ), historically known as Spalato (; ; see #Name, other names), is the List of cities and towns in Croatia, second-largest city of Croatia after the capital Zagreb, the largest city in Dalmatia and the largest city on the Croatian coast ...

. In 1934

J. L. B. Smith James Leonard Brierley Smith (26 September 1897 – 8 January 1968) was a South African ichthyology, ichthyologist, organic chemist, and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought t ...

described a new

subgenus In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Trigla The piper gurnard (''Trigla lyra''), also known as the piper or the lyre gurnard, is a species of marine, demersal ray-finned fish from the family Triglidae, the gurnards and sea robins. It is found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterran ...

'' called ''Trigloporus'' for his newly described species ''Trigla africana''. Some authorities have treated this as a valid genus but it is treated as a subgenus of '' Chelidonichthys''.

Subspecies

There are two

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of streaked gurnard: * '' Chelidonichthys lastoviza lastoviza'' (Bonnaterre, 1788) - the eastern Atlantic south to Angola * '' Chelidonichthys lastoviza africana'' (J. L. B. Smith, 1934) Southern Africa

Etymology

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 ...

of the streaked gurnard, ''lastoviza'', is its common name in Split as reported by Brünnich whose description Bonnaterre based his published description on.

Description

The streaked gurnard has a large triangular, bony head which bears many ridges and spines and with a deep occipital groove. There are two separate

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, the first contains between 9 and 11 spines while the second dorsal fin , and the anal fin, both have between 14 and 17 fin rays. The body is covered in clear, oblique ridges of skin starting on 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 ...

. The breast may or may not have scales but the belly is scaled. The scales of the lateral line are enlarged and have small spines on them. The upper body is red, marked with dark spotting on the head and the back with a paler lower body. The pectoral fins are greyish marked with large dark blue spots. The three lower pectoral fin rays are separated from the rest of the fin. The head has an almost vertical profile on the snout. The 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 this species is , although is more typical/

Distribution and habitat

The streaked gurnard is found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean from southern Norway and Scotland to the Cape of Good Hope and round coast of South Africa into the southwestern Indian Ocean as far north as Mozambique. It is also found around the

Macaronesian Islands Macaronesia (; ) is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of Atlantic oceanic islands, which were formed by seamounts on the ...

and the islands in the

Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea (French language, French: ''Golfe de Guinée''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Golfo de Guinea''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Golfo da Guiné'') is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez i ...

. It is found in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

but is absent from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

. This is a demersal species of rocky and sandy substrates and sand, found in shallow coastal water to waters as deep as .

Biology

Streaked gurnards may form schools when they are near the surface. Their diet is made up of small crustaceans. In European population spawning occurs in midsummer, running from June to August.

Fisheries

The streaked gurnard is frequently caught in trawls but only the largest specimens are retained. It is regularly appears in fish markets in the western Mediterranean, Adriatic and Cyprus, infrequently elsewhere. The catch is marketed fresh or chilled.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:gurnard, streaked Fish of the East Atlantic streaked gurnard Streaked gurnard Taxa named by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre