who is the bearded brotula

The bearded brotula is an ophidiid, of the same family as the pink cusk-eel (congro-rosa), with an elongated body covered in small scales. It lives on or just above the bottom, most commonly between 50 and 300 m, over the continental shelf with sand and mud bottoms, but has been recorded down to 650 m. Juveniles are common on reefs, and smaller silvery specimens are caught far from shore in surface waters. In the western Atlantic it occurs from the southern United States and the Gulf of Mexico to northern South America, including the Caribbean islands, and in the eastern Atlantic from Senegal to Angola. The eggs are pelagic, held in a gelatinous mass. It has a minor commercial fishery and, for the sport angler, is a deep bottom fish.

identification

Elongated body, tapering toward the tail, covered in small, overlapping scales. The mark is the set of barbels: six on the snout and six on the chin. Dorsal and anal fins very long (109 to 117 rays in the dorsal and 86 to 90 in the anal). Pelvic fins dark, growing darker toward a nearly black edge. The brotula has a single short barbel on the chin, and the pink cusk-eel has none on the snout and pelvic fins reduced to two filaments. In the eastern Pacific there is a similar species, Brotula clarkae.