Maximum length just over 25 cm. The back is brownish yellow, the flanks silvery brown. These little fish provide abundant food for commercially important species such as cod, hake and turbot. When they are themselves taken in trawls they are most often used for fish meal; but they are found in French markets and they have been fished with some enthusiasm in Cornwall, where they may be called blens or blinds. Day remarks that: ‘. . . these last names are doubtless due to a sort of loose bag capable of inflation existing in front of the eye . . . well designated by the local words bleb or blain, terms for a bubble in the water, or a blister.’
