Lepidopus caudatus
No common name
Collection Details
Specimens
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Perciformes (Perciformes, Also Called the Acanthopteri)
Trichiuridae (Cutlassfishes)
Lepidopus
Lepidopus caudatus
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: eel-like. Second anal-fin spine plate-like. Pyloric caeca 20 - 29. Body uniformly silvery (Ref. 6181). Pelvic fin very small (Ref. 35388). Striking features: striking shape of body.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: France and western Mediterranean to Senegal, including Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and offshore seamounts; Cape Fria, Namibia to Agulhas Bank, South Africa including northern Walvis Ridge. Southern Indian Ocean: seamounts 30 to 35°S. Southwest Pacific: Australia (New South Wales to southern West Australia) and New Zealand. Southeast Pacific: Peru. A doubtful record from Cape San Lucas, Mexico.
Habitat Associations
Marine. benthopelagic. depth range 42-620 m.
Biology
Occur on continental shelf, along its edge and upper slope down to 400 m (600 m in Australia), usually over sandy and muddy bottoms from 100 to 250 m (over 300 m in Australia). Depth range from 333-620 m in the eastern Ionian Sea (Ref. 56504). Migrate into midwater at night. Form schools; occasionally found inshore in upwelling of deep water when it appears at surface. Feed on crustaceans, small squid and fish (Ref. 6768). Eggs and larvae are pelagic (Ref. 6768).
Max length: 210.0 cm TL; common length: 117.0 cm SL; max weight: 8000 g; max age: 8 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Data Deficient (DD), assessed 2013-05-19. Resilience: Medium (K=0.14-0.38; tmax=5-8).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: highly commercial; gamefish.
References
Nakamura, I. and N.V. Parin (1993) FAO Species Catalogue. Vol. 15. Snake mackerels and cutlassfishes of the world (families Gempylidae and Trichiuridae). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of the snake mackerels, snoeks, escolars, gemfishes, sackfishes, domine, oilfish, cutlassfishes,. scabbardfishes, hairtails, and frostfishes known to date. FAO Fish. Synop. 125(15):136 p.
Bianchi, G., K.E. Carpenter, J.-P. Roux, F.J. Molloy, D. Boyer and H.J. Boyer (1999) FAO species identification guide for fishery purposes. Field guide to the living marine resources of Namibia. FAO, Rome. 265 p.
Macpherson, E. (1979) Relations trophiques des poissons dans la Méditerranée occidentale. Rapp. Comm. Int. Explor. Sci. Mer Méditerr. 25/26, 49-58.
Mytilineou, C., C.-Y. Politou, C. Papaconstantinou, S. Kavadas, G. D'Onghia and L. Sion (2005) Deep-water fish fauna in the Eastern Ionian Sea. Belg. J. Zool., 135(2):229-233.
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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