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Fish

Streaked gurnard

Chelidonichthys lastoviza

Chelidonichthys lastoviza (Bonnaterre, 1788) · Triglidae WoRMS 127261

Reference photos

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Red above and pale below, with dark spots on the head and back and large dark blue spots on the grey pectoral fins. Uniquely amongst gurnards, the body is covered with transverse ridges of skin that start at the lateral line, and the lateral line scales are enlarged and armed with small spines. The head is large with a steep forehead, and the three lowermost pectoral rays are detached.

Depth

10-150 m, usually no deeper than about 40 m

Size

Up to 40 cm, commonly 15 to 20 cm

Habitat

Demersal over sandy and rocky bottoms, from the coast down to about 150 m

Behaviour

Growls while competing for food; fish that growl while circling a food item are more likely to grasp it than silent fish

Diet

I eat

  • Crustaceans, with bottom-living animals making up 98-100% of the diet
  • Crabs, including several species of the genus Liocarcinus
  • Mysid shrimps and bottom-living copepods

Eats me

  • The invasive silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus), whose gut contents off Crete included a streaked gurnard

Where you'd find it

Mostly seen in the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, and only here and there elsewhere.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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