Horsehead tilefish (Branchiostegus japonicus) is a saltwater species recorded in Taiwan. It is mainly found over sand, mud, at depths of 30–200 m. The main season in Taiwan runs spring, summer.
Scientific name: Branchiostegus japonicus · Water: Saltwater · Season: Spring, Summer
Size: up to 46 cm
The horsehead tilefish, 馬頭魚 in Taiwan, is a red-tinged malacanthid with a blunt, square head, prized off northern, northeastern and Penghu waters. Its range is the western Pacific, from central Honshu down to the South China Sea, with reports as far south as the Arafura Sea. It lives over sandy-muddy bottoms at about 30–200 m and is mainly a boat-fishing species.
The most useful field mark is a large triangular patch of silvery white below the eye, in place of the silvery bars that other members of the genus show there. The caudal fin carries five or six vivid yellow stripes, the middle ones bolder than those on the upper and lower lobes. Irregular reddish blotches sit along the middle of the back, looking as though the mucus layer had been stripped away to reveal the golden-yellow beneath. It excavates burrows in sand, mud and shell ground and uses them both to escape predators and as nocturnal shelter. Most fish run about 35 cm even though the species reaches 46 cm, and the heaviest recorded weighed 1.3 kg. In the East China and Yellow Seas it is usually taken between 80 and 200 m. It is a pelagic spawner whose eggs float as a mass encased in mucus, and it spawns twice a year, in July and in October.
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