''Eumicrotremus pacificus'', sometimes known as the spotted lumpsucker or the balloon lumpfish, is a species of

lumpfish The Cyclopteridae are a family of marine fishes, commonly known as lumpsuckers or lumpfish, in the order Scorpaeniformes. They are found in the cold waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, and North Pacific oceans. The greatest number of species ar ...

native to the

Northwest Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. It can be found in the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...

, the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

, the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

, and the Pacific Ocean off

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

and the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

. It may be confused with the closely related ''

Eumicrotremus orbis The Pacific spiny lumpsucker (''Eumicrotremus orbis'') is a species of bony fish in the family Cyclopteridae. Description Pacific spiny lumpsuckers are a globular-shaped fish that typically measures in length, though the most common size is . ...

'', which overlaps with ''E. pacificus'' in range, although ''E. pacificus'' is larger, reaching 20 cm (7.9 inches) TL. This fish is generally yellow to orange in color with small dark spots and its tubercles are usually smaller and less pronounced than ''E. orbis'', giving it a less spiny appearance.

References

Cyclopteridae {{Improve categories, date=January 2022