Lestidium atlanticum
No common name
Collection Details
Specimens
Photos
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Aulopiformes
Paralepididae (Barracudinas)
Lestidium
Lestidium atlanticum
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.
It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting.
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Characters
Elongate, slender, and compressed body; lower jaw curved upward; dorsal fin closer to pelvic fin than to anus; body depth 8% SL; head length 22.4-22.9% SL; snout length 10.1-12.4% SL; premaxillary teeth with 2-3 depressible canines and 27-78 small uniserial teeth; lower jaw with 7-8 widely spaced canines; vomer lacks teeth; palatine with 3 large depressible teeth anteriorly and single row of 6-14 short fixed teeth posteriorly; gill membranes joined in front of eyes and free of isthmus; pectoral fin with 12 rays; dorsal fin with 9-10 rays; pelvic fin with 9 rays; anal fin with 29-30 rays; scales lacking except for embedded lateral scales; lateral line scale sections diamond-shaped, about 1.5 times longer than high, numbering 120; vertebrae 80-83
Unpigmented body except for light brown band along dorsal surface, light pigment on side of caudal peduncle, and line of melanophores along upper and lower border of lateral line sections; luminous organ present in midventral musculature
Distribution
Southeastern United States, from about 35°N
Eastern Gulf of Mexico
Habitat Associations
Circumtropical, bathypelagic zone; captured from surface to 1200 m depth
Biology
Maximum known size 196 mm SL
Oceanic species (Ref. 26340) occurring from the surface (young) to about 1,000 m depth (Ref. 4473).
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2013-06-17. Resilience: Medium (Assuming tmax>3).
Phylogeny and Morphologically Similar Fishes
Distinguished from other species of the family by the combination of characters described
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: of no interest.
References
Rofen 1966a
Rass 1971
Murdy et al. 1983
Uyeno et al. 1983
Post 1986a
Post, A. (1986) Paralepididae. p. 274-278. In M.M. Smith and P.C. Heemstra (eds.) Smiths' sea fishes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Post, A. (1990) Paralepididae. p. 373-384. In J.C. Quero, J.C. Hureau, C. Karrer, A. Post and L. Saldanha (eds.) Check-list of the fishes of the eastern tropical Atlantic (CLOFETA). JNICT, Lisbon; SEI, Paris; and UNESCO, Paris. Vol. 1.
Claro, R. (1994) Características generales de la ictiofauna. p. 55-70. In R. Claro (ed.) Ecología de los peces marinos de Cuba. Instituto de Oceanología Academia de Ciencias de Cuba and Centro de Investigaciones de Quintana Roo.
Fricke, R., M. Kulbicki and L. Wantiez (2011) Checklist of the fishes of New Caledonia, and their distribution in the Southwest Pacific Ocean (Pisces). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde A, Neue Serie 4:341-463.
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