Maurolicus muelleri
No common name
NS
GNR
Collection Details
Specimens
Photos
There are no photos available for this taxon yet.
Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Stomiiformes
Sternoptychidae (Marine Hatchetfishes)
Maurolicus
Maurolicus muelleri
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.)
and processed using AI-assisted text extraction.
It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting.
When citing, please reference the original source rather than this page.
Learn more about our species accounts.
Characters
Body shape: elongated. Silvery with a greenish-blue back (Ref. 4054).
Distribution
Sub-Arctic, and sub-Antarctic waters of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. Eastern Atlantic:: from Iceland and Norway to Senegal and from Democratic Republic of the Congo to Namibia. In tropical and subtropical waters.
Habitat Associations
Marine. bathypelagic. depth range 271-1524 m.
Biology
Oceanic, found to depths of at least 1,524 m. Migrate in the water column at depths of 150-250 m during the day and to about 50 m at night (Ref. 57912, 107678). Mesopelagic (Ref. 5951); abundant near continental shelf-slope breaks and seamounts, rare in the open ocean (Ref. 107678). A cyclic selective feeder of copepods and euphausiids (Ref. 4739). They become sexually mature when 1 year old. Spawning takes place in March - September, producing 200-500 eggs, floating on the surface (Ref. 35388). Lipid content is 5.5 % in fresh body weight and wax ester is 15.3 % in total lipids (Ref. 8966).
Max length: 8.0 cm TL; common length: 4.0 cm TL; max age: 3 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none. Spawns at least twice in in a lifetime (Ref. 57912).
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2018-10-09. Resilience: High (K=0.88; Fec=200-500; tm=1; tmax=3).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: minor commercial.
References
Weitzman, S.H. (1986) Sternoptychidae. p. 253-259. In M.M. Smith and P.C. Heemstra (eds.) Smiths' sea fishes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Wheeler, A. (1992) A list of the common and scientific names of fishes of the British Isles. J. Fish Biol. 41(suppl.A):1-37.
Nakamura, I., T. Inada, M. Takeda and H. Hatanaka (1986) Important fishes trawled off Patagonia. Japan Marine Fishery Resource Research Center, Tokyo. 369 p.
Gorelova, T.A. and N.A. Krasil'nikova (1990) On the diet of Maurolicus muelleri in the vicinity of Seamounts Discovery, Nasca, and Mt. Africana. J. Ichthyol. 30(7):42-52.
Muus, B.J. and J.G. Nielsen (1999) Sea fish. Scandinavian Fishing Year Book, Hedehusene, Denmark. 340 p.
Okiyama, M. (1971) Early life history of the gonostomatid fish, Maurolicus muelleri (Gmelin), in the Japan Sea. Bull. Jap. Sea Reg. Fish. Res. Lab. 23:21-53.
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.
Bañón, R., J.C. Arronte, C. Rodriguez-Cabello, C.-G. Piñeiro, A. Punzon and A. Serrano (2016) Commented checklist of marine fishes from the Galicia Bank seamount (NW Spain). Zootaxa 4067(3):293-333. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4067.3.2
Comments On Maurolicus muelleri