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Fish

Bib

Trisopterus luscus

Trisopterus luscus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Gadidae WoRMS 126445

Reference photos

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A deep-bodied, coppery member of the cod family with three or four pale vertical bands, a long chin barbel, and a black mark the size of the eye at the base of each pectoral fin. Gregarious, in large schools when young, and often found in and around wrecks.

Depth

30-100 m, and recorded inshore and in coastal waters down to 300 m

Size

Up to 46 cm total length, commonly around 30 cm; adults usually 20-30 cm

Habitat

Benthopelagic over mixed rock and sand, inshore and in coastal waters; often in and around wrecks

Behaviour

Gregarious; young fish often in large schools, and moves inshore to 50 m or less to spawn

Diet

I eat

  • Bottom-living invertebrates are its main food, above all benthic crustaceans such as shrimps and prawns, crabs, amphipods and mysids
  • Small fish, including sandeels, herring, sprat and gobies
  • Molluscs and polychaete worms taken off the seabed, plus squid and cuttlefish

Eats me

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the waters west of Ireland and the waters west of Scotland.

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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