The bighead sculpin (''Batrachocottus baicalensis'') is a species of

sculpin A sculpin is a type of fish that belongs to the superfamily Cottoidea in the order Scorpaeniformes.Kane, E. A. and T. E. Higham. (2012)Life in the flow lane: differences in pectoral fin morphology suggest transitions in station-holding demand a ...

fish that is endemic to the

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal (, russian: Oзеро Байкал, Ozero Baykal ); mn, Байгал нуур, Baigal nuur) is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

watershed in Siberia, Russia. It typically lives on rocky bottoms, often in places with

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

, at depths of , but can occur as deep as . Its colour varies from grayish to brownish or greenish depending on the bottom type. It can reach up to in length, but most are . It feeds on a wide range of smaller animals such as young fish, insect larvae,

amphipod Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descr ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

s and oligochaetes. Breeding is in the spring where the female lays 618 to 1622 eggs, which are guarded by the male. The bighead sculpin is variously considered to belong either to the family

Cottocomephoridae The Cottidae are a family of fish in the superfamily Cottoidea, the sculpins. It is the largest sculpin family, with about 275 species in 70 genera.Kane, E. A. and T. E. Higham. (2012)Life in the flow lane: differences in pectoral fin morphology ...

, Cottidae or

Abyssocottidae The Abyssocottinae are a subfamily of ray-finned fishes in the family Cottidae, the sculpins. They are known commonly as the deep-water sculpins.Froese, R. and D. Pauly. (Eds.Abyssocottidae.FishBase. 2011. The entire family is endemic to Lake Ba ...

.Tytti Kontula, Sergei V. Kirilchik, Risto Väinölä (2003
Endemic diversification of the monophyletic cottoid fish species flock in Lake Baikal explored with mtDNA sequencing
'' Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' 27, 1, 143–155.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6428124 Cottidae Fish described in 1874 Fish of Lake Baikal