''Liparis liparis'', the common seasnail, striped seasnail or seasnail, is a small species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family

Liparidae The Liparidae, commonly known as snailfish or sea snails, are a family of marine scorpaeniform fishes. Widely distributed from the Arctic to Antarctic Oceans, including the oceans in between, the snailfish family contains more than 30 genera ...

, the snailfishes, in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

Scorpaeniformes, the scorpionfishes and flatheads. It is found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean where it lives on the seabed.

Taxonomy

''Liparis liparis'' was first formally described in 1766 as ''Cyclopterus liparis'' by Carl Linnaeus with its type locality given as the North Sea off County Durham in England. In 1777

Giovanni Scopoli Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (sometimes Latinized as Johannes Antonius Scopolius) (3 June 1723 – 8 May 1788) was an Italian physician and naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Au ...

proposed the genus '' Liparis'' with ''Cyclopterus liparis'' as its only species although it was not designated as the type species until 1898 when

David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...

and

Barton Warren Evermann Barton Warren Evermann (October 24, 1853 – September 27, 1932) was an American ichthyologist. Early life and education Evermann was born in Monroe County, Iowa in 1853. His family moved to Indiana while he was still a child and it was ...

officially designated ''C. liparis'' as the type species of the genus.

Etymology

''Liparis liparis'' is a tautonym with ''liparis'' meaning "sleek-skinned" in Greek, an allusion to the smooth skin of this fish, lacking scales.

Description

''Liparis liparis'' is an unusual-looking fish with a large head and front part of the body and a laterally compressed posterior part of the body and large fringing fins. Its length is generally between . The bony head has two pairs of nostrils on the snout. The pectoral fins are very large and unite beneath the body. The pelvic fins take the form of a large sucking disc located between the pectorals. The dorsal fin has 27 to 36 soft rays and both it and the anal fins overlap the caudal fin. The skin is slimy and lacks scales.

Distribution

''Liparis liparis'' is native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean as far east as the Barents Sea,

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...

, Spitsbergen and Bear Island and as far south as the British Isles. It is also present in the Baltic Sea and North Sea, the waters around Iceland and Greenland and as far west as the Gulf of Maine. Its depth range is from to and it lives near the seabed in inshore waters.The Pocket Guide to Saltwater Fishes of Britain and Europe

Biology

''Liparis liparis'' feeds on small crustaceans, such as

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

s and

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 ...

s, and also

polychaete worms Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

and fish. It breeds in the winter in the southern part of its range and in spring in the northern part. The eggs are laid on the seabed amongst short

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

or hydroids. The eggs hatch in 6–8 weeks and the larvae are pelagic, forming part of the plankton.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2125926 liparis Fish of the Arctic Ocean Fish of the Baltic Sea Fish of the North Sea Marine fish of Europe striped seasnail Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus