Flying gurnard

Flying gurnard
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Scorpaeniformes
Family: Dactylopteridae
Genus: Dactylopterus
Lacépède, 1801
Species: D. volitans
Binomial name
Dactylopterus volitans
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms

Callionymus pelagicus Rafinesque, 1818
Cephalacanthus spinarella (Linnaeus, 1758)
Cephalacanthus volitans (Linnaeus, 1758)
Dactilopterus volitans (Linnaeus, 1758)
Dactylopterus blochii Swainson, 1839
Dactylopterus communis Owen, 1853
Dactylopterus fasciatus Swainson, 1839
Dactylopterus occidentalis Swainson, 1839
Dactylopterus spinarella (Linnaeus, 1758)
Dactylopterus tentaculatus Swainson, 1839
Dactylopterus vulgaris Steindachner, 1867
Gasterosteus spinarella Linnaeus, 1758
Gonocephalus macrocephalus Gronow, 1854
Polynemus sexradiatus Mitchill, 1818
Trigla fasciata Bloch & Schneider, 1801
Trigla volitans Linnaeus, 1758

The flying gurnard, or helmet gurnard, (Dactylopterus volitans) is a fish of tropical to warm temperate waters on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. On the American side, it is found as far north as Massachusetts (exceptionally as far as Canada) and as far south as Argentina, including the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.[1] On the European and African side, it ranges from the English Channel to Angola, including the Mediterranean Sea.[1] Similar and related species from the genus Dactyloptena are found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

When excited, the fish spreads its "wings", which are semi-transparent but tipped with a beautiful and phosphorescent bright blue coloration (these are designed to scare away predators, not to enable the fish to glide in the air as do the fins of flying fish). The fish also has large eyes. It reaches up to 50 cm (20 in) in length and 1.8 kg (4.0 lb) in weight.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2007). "Dactylopterus volitans" in FishBase. Dec 2007 version.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.