The black seasnail (''Paraliparis bathybius'') is a species of fish in 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 ...

(snailfish).

Description

The black seasnail has a long and tapering body (maximum ), black and grey in colour, with large head, dorsal and

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

s that run the length of the body, and a much reduced caudal fin, although it has no adhesive disc, unlike other snailfish. The pectoral fins have two lobes, the lower having 3–4 rays.

Habitat

The black seasnail is

bathydemersal Demersal fish, also known as groundfish, live and feed on or near the bottom of seas or lakes (the demersal zone).Walrond Carl . "Coastal fish - Fish of the open sea floor"Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009 They occ ...

, living in the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean at depths of .

Behaviour

It feeds on amphipods, gastropods and

mysids Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in this ...

. It spawns in summer, producing up to 400 eggs up to in diameter.

References

Black seasnail The black seasnail (''Paraliparis bathybius'') is a species of fish in the family Liparidae (snailfish). Description The black seasnail has a long and tapering body (maximum ), black and grey in colour, with large head, dorsal and anal fins t ...

Fish described in 1879 Taxa named by Robert Collett {{Rayfinned-fish-stub