page_title: Barracudina
section_title: Ecology and life history
hierarchical_section_title: Barracudina / Ecology and life history
caption_attribution_description: English: Lestrolepis japonica Polski: Lestrolepis japonica
context_page_description: Barracudinas are any member of the marine mesopelagic fish family Paralepididae: 50 or so extant species are found almost worldwide in deep waters. Several genera are known only from fossils dating back to the Ypresian epoch.
  The generic name Paralepis is from Greek - para meaning "somewhat", lepis meaning "scaled".
context_section_description: Barracudinas are known to inhabit mesopelagic depths throughout the world's oceans, and are predators of fish, shrimps, and squids. While many barracudina species can be found at depths of 2000 m, their highest abundances tend to occur between 200 and 1000 m. Barracudinas are not thought to participate in diel vertical migration. While they are rarely caught by fisheries, they are frequently documented in the guts of pelagic predators such as tuna, swordfish, lancetfish, Cuvier's beaked whales, and blue sharks.
  First-hand accounts from the Bathyscaphe Trieste reported behavioral observations of Lestrolepis intermedia rapidly swimming vertically through the water column like "silvery javelins" glowing "a brilliant yellow" from their bioluminescent organs. They were also observed hovering in the water and rapidly reorienting themselves from facing upwards to facing downwards as if scanning for predators and/or prey. If this behavior is common to all species of barracudina is not known, as it has not been observed since.
  Very little is known of the spawning habits of these fish. While both sperm and eggs are present in gonads, spawning has never been observed. Planktonic disposition and transmission of their early larva indicate that the eggs are fertilized and dispersed in the plankton. While specific life histories differ among species and genera, postlarval barracudina size classes are found more frequently within proximity to continental shelf escarpments at certain times of the year. However, this could also be a sampling artifact, since barracudina are only rarely caught by fisheries-independent sampling.
caption: Lejap u5
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:09 10:06:45", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2743", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "317"}