The twohorn sculpin or two-horned sculpin, Icelus bicornis, is a cold-water benthic fish species of Scorpaeniformes

Scorpaeniformes

Scorpaeniformes is an order of ray-finned fish, but it has also been called the Scleroparei.They are known as "mail-cheeked" fishes due to their distinguishing characteristic, the suborbital stay: a backwards extension of the third circumorbital bone across the cheek to the preoperculum, to which...

 family. It only reaches 6.5 cm in length. It has a thin caudal peduncle, one sharp spine located in front of each eye and two spines behind, hence its common name. Like other sculpins, this species has two dorsal fin

Dorsal fin

A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...

s (the first is spiny while the second is soft-rayed), large pectoral fins and slender pelvics. The caudal fin is slightly rounded and has dark, vertical bars and a black spot at the base. The body is yellowish, with many dark blotches on the back and sides.

Reproduction

Spawning apparently occurs from August to October. Females produce from 100 to 400 eggs, in function of their body size.

Distribution

In Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, this fish occurs as far north as the northern tip of Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, it is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, with Cape Columbia being the most northerly point of land in Canada...

. Elsewhere, it is distributed along Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 coasts up to the Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...

 and the Barents Sea

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...

 (as far North as 82 degrees

82nd parallel north

The 82nd parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 82 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, in the Arctic. It passes through the Arctic Ocean and North America....

), and west to Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 and Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

. It is typically found at depths between 40 and 180 metres on sand, mud or rocky substrate

Substrate (marine biology)

Stream substrate is the material that rests at the bottom of a stream. There are several classification guides. One is:*Mud – silt and clay.*Sand – Particles between 0.06 and 2 mm in diameter.*Granule – Between 2 and 4 mm in diameter....

s.