Bellator militaris
Horned Searobin
Collection Details
Specimens
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Scorpaeniformes (Lionfish, Stonefish and others)
Triglidae (Searobins)
Bellator
Bellator militaris (Horned Searobin)
Description
This species account was compiled from
Composite (multiple sources) (McEachran, J.D. and J.D. Fechhelm. Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin.)
and processed using AI-assisted text extraction.
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Characters
Head relatively long and moderately broad; snout relatively long; rostral projection triangular shaped with small spines along margin; preopercular spine with supplemental spine; opercular spine falls short of tip of cleithral spine; gill rakers on first arch number 0 to 3 on upper limb and 10 to 15 on lower limb; measurements (% SL): head length 38%–50%, snout length 15%–23%, upper jaw length 10%–17%, orbit diameter 9%–14%, interorbital width 8%–13%, pectoral fin length 29%–59%, first free pectoral fin ray length 23%–31%, body depth 28%–41%; joined pectoral fin rays number 12; first dorsal fin has 10 or 11 spines, with first 3 serrated, and second dorsal fin has 11 rays, with first serrated at base; anal fin rays number 9 or 10; body covered with small ctenoid scales; nape naked but may have rows of small papillae; breast and posterior half of belly scaled, and anterior half of belly naked.
Color in life is brown on upper half of body and white to slightly dusky on lower half, with two or three yellow stripes along upper sides; first dorsal fin is light, with yellow spots and yellow pigment on filaments of first two dorsal spines, and black spot between fourth and fifth spines; uppermost pectoral fin rays marked with black and white bands.
Distribution
Western Atlantic from North Carolina to Colombia, including the Gulf of Mexico.
Widespread along the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico.
Habitat Associations
Outer continental shelf; depth range 20-216 m.
Biology
Food consists of copepods, mysid shrimps, penaeid shrimps, and ray-finned fishes; juveniles consume a higher proportion of copepods and mysids, and adults consume a higher proportion of penaeid shrimps and ray-finned fishes.
Maximum known size is 160 mm SL.
Found from bays and estuaries to the mid-shelf. Neither anterolateral glandular grooves nor venom gland is present (Ref. 57406).
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2012-08-20. Resilience: High (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: commercial.
References
Longley and Hildebrand 1941
Ginsburg 1950
Hildebrand 1954
Miller 1965
Chittenden and McEachran 1976
Lewis and Yerger 1976
Chittenden and Moore 1977
Hoese and Moore 1977
Ross 1977
Robins and Ray 1986
Miller and Richards 1991a
Boschung 1992
Huidobro-Campos and Schmitter-Soto 1993
Schaldach et al. 1997
Smith 1997
Hoese and Moore 1998
Ross 1983
Richards and Miller 2002a
Robins, C.R. and G.C. Ray (1986) A field guide to Atlantic coast fishes of North America. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. 354 p.
Smith, C.L. (1997) National Audubon Society field guide to tropical marine fishes of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. 720 p.
Patzner, R.A. (2008) Reproductive strategies of fish. pp. 311-350. In Rocha, M.J., A. Arukwe and B.G. Kapoor (eds). Fish reproduction: cytology, biology and ecology. Science Publisher, Inc. Oxford. 631 p.
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