Date:Mon 7/8/2024 8:00 AM
Happy Monday, everyone, and to a good week ahead! Today's fish of the day is the spiny red gurnard!
The spiny red gurnard, known by scientific name Chelidonichthys spinosus, is known for their strange appearance. Their range is primarily around the Northeastern Pacific, living in the China sea, Yellow sea, and from the South coast of Japan, spreading Westward. They live in warm temperate to tropical waters, living in sandy bottomed or mud substrate. Living at a depth of 25-630 meters these fish are benthic, surviving off what the can forage across the sea bed.
The spiny red gurnard is a migratory species, during the winter and autumn they head to deeper waters away from shore, and during the early spring, they came back inshore, where there's more food. The diet of the spiny red gurnard is similar to that of other other gurnard's and sea robins, consists primarily of worms, and small crustaceans, although on rare occasion they'll eat smaller fish or fry. The six leg like appendages for which they are so well known, are rather 6 additional and separated pectoral fins.
These additional pectoral fins are noted for their exceptional flexibility, and contain taste buds along their surface, that they use for better foraging. These fish can get to a maximum size of 40 cm in length, and the heaviest recorded was 950g. No known predators of the spiny red gurnard are known, other than humans, as this fish is an essential food fish across it's range. Other than these details this fish is rather unknown, and I can find no information on their breeding habits, nor the breeding habits of their family. The life history as well is unknown, leaving us only the hope they may be better studied in the future.
That's the spiny red gurnard, everyone. Have a wonderful Monday!