|
Order Lophiiformes(anglerfishes) Family Chaunacidae(Sea toads).
Spotted sea toad(temporary name).
Chaunax abei(Le Danois, 1978). Max length/40cm TL.
Korean name/jeom-ssin-beng-i(점씬벵이)
Japanese name/Midori-fusa-ankou
Chinese name/阿部单棘躄鱼
D/spine 3, soft ray 11. A/soft ray 7. P1/12. P2/5. Caudal/8. vert/19.
Distribution; Indo-West Pacific/South Sea of Korea, Pacific coasts in south of Fukushima Prefecture Japan, Taiwan, East China Sea, Philippines, New Caledonia and Madagascar General; Head large and slightly depressed. Head and body shape globular with high depth, peduncle slender and compressed, over all shape look like a club. Eyes are of moderate size. Eye small and located dorso-head, and interorbital width very broad. The length of illicium short, with small, thin esca in oval shape. First dorsal spine(illucium) fits into a scaleless U-shaped depression(illicial cavity) on the snout, this groove is shallow, the posterior end of groove exceeds the front margin of eye.
All surface of body very densely covered with numerous minute spines. Numerous soft cortical processes in shape of beard hair around the rim of belly below the mandibular Mouth large and almost vertical. 3~4 rows of small and sharp teeth on both jaws. Vomer also with teeth. Posterior end of upper jaw not reach the anterior margin of eye.
Three lateral lines are located at the top, middle, and bottom respectively. The middle one placed below eye and ends shortly within the head. The upper one skewed toward the dorsal and starts at the back of the eye and runs along the dorsal side of the body to the peduncle. The bottom one starts at the ventral side under the chin, goes sideways, and ends at the base of the pectoral fin. The dorsal fin is inherently composed of two, but only the second dorsal fin is visible. The reason is that the first dorsal fin consists of three spines, the visible first spine is transformed into a fishing rod(Illicium) to attract food, and the two spines behind it are hidden under the skin and are not visible. Dorsal, anal and pectoral fin rays unbranched soft ray, but caudal fin branched. Caudal fin with truncated margin.
Color of body; When fresh, the body color changes from orange red in ground color to pale red close to white depending on the environment, and round and distinct reddish brown dots the size of the eyes are scattered relatively evenly. Belly pale. The pelvic and anal fins white, the rest fins with red in color and with 2~3 rows of dark brown bands. Chaunax abei is very similar to c. fimbriatus in morphological features, but the former is characterized in having round red brown spots, whereas the latter has round or irregular yellow spots on the body surface. Found in bottoms of 100~500m depth.
|