Clinocottus embryum
species of fish
Clinocottus embryum, the calico sculpin or mossy sculpin, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. It is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
Clinocottus embryum was first formally described as Oligocottus embryum in 1895 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Edwin Chapin Starks with its type locality given as "Several miles east of Neah Bay, Washington". The calico sculpin is classified within the subgenus Blennicottus which was proposed by Theodore Gill in 1861 and is the clade of round headed species within the genus Clinocottus, these species seemingly not being the closest relatives of the two sharp snouted species. The specific name, embryum, means "in moss", an allusion Jordan and Starks did not explain but may be a reference to this species being found in tidal pools among algae.
Description
Clinocottus embryum has between 8 and 10 spines and 14 and 17 soft rays supporting its dorsal fins and 9 to 12 soft rays in the anal fin. The caudal fin is rounded and the pelvic fins are small. This species has cirri on the head and lateral line only. There is a blunt spine on the preoperculum. The maximum published total length of this species is 7 cm (2.8 in).
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This entry incorporates text from “Clinocottus embryum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.