Tactostoma macropus
Longfin Dragonfish
NS
G5
Collection Details
Specimens
Photos
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Stomiiformes
Stomiidae (Dragonfishes)
Tactostoma
Tactostoma macropus (Longfin Dragonfish)
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. Jet black all over except for the dark gray on the posterior part of the lower jaw; when the thin epidermis is rubbed off, as is difficult to avoid, the dermis shows lead gray; young rich brown in color (Ref. 6885). Striking features: light organs.
Distribution
Northwest Pacific: Japan (Ref. 559); Kamchatka and Kuril Islands (Ref. 41668). Eastern Pacific: Bering Sea (Ref. 265) and the Gulf of Alaska to southern California, USA (Ref. 2850), southwards to central Baja California (Ref. 35904). Reported from Chile.
Habitat Associations
Marine. bathypelagic. depth range 30-2000 m.
Biology
Mesopelagic migrating into epipelagic at night (Ref. 35904). Oviparous, with planktonic eggs and larvae (Ref. 35904).
Max length: 34.3 cm TL.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none. Oviparous (Ref. 35904).
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2019-08-15. Resilience: Medium (K=0.3).
References
Eschmeyer, W.N., E.S. Herald and H. Hammann (1983) A field guide to Pacific coast fishes of North America. Boston (MA, USA): Houghton Mifflin Company. xii+336 p.
Clemens, W.A. and G.V. Wilby (1961) Fishes of the Pacific coast of Canada. 2nd ed. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada Bull. (68):443 p.
Shinohara, G., K. Yabe, M. Nakaya, G. Anma, S. Yamaguchi and K. Amaoka (1994) Deep-sea fishes collected from the North Pacific by the T/S Oshoro-Maru. Bull. Fac. Fish. Hokkaido Univ. 45 (2):48-80.
Moser, H.G. (1996) Melanostomiidae: scaleless dragonfishes. p. 308-319. In H.G. Moser (ed.) The early stages of fishes in the California Current Region. California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) Atlas No. 33. 1505 p.
Il'inskiy, E.N., A.A. Balanov and O.A. Ivanov (1995) Rare mesopelagic fishes Scopelosaurus harryi, Arctozenus rissoi, Magnisudis atlantica and Tactostoma macropus from the Northwest Pacific. 2. Spatial distribution and biology. J. Ichthyol. 35(6):1-19.
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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