Small Sandeel

• It spends much of the day and the whole winter buried in the sand, emerging in dense shoals to feed on plankton.
• It is the mainstay of the diet of puffins, terns and other North Sea seabirds, to the point that the industrial fishery for it has been linked to the decline of several Scottish colonies.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bony fish)

Habitat and environment

Fine sand and gravel bottoms of the north-east Atlantic, between 1 and 96 m; it spends the night and the winter buried in the sediment

Sexual maturity

18 months

Litter / clutch size

4,000-20,000 eggs per female, attached to the sand

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Ammodytes tobianus