This marine species occurs in the Atlantic Ocean from the Shetlands to the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands; in the Western Mediterranean Sea and the Adriatic Sea.
Vikings having made the islands the headquarters of their buccaneering expeditions (carried out indifferently against their own Norway and the coasts and isles of Scotland), Harold Hårfagre ("Fair Hair") subdued the rovers in 875 and annexed both Orkney and Shetland to Norway.
The feature is named after Edouard Stackpole, Curator of the Marine Historical Association, Mystic, Connecticut, historian of early American whaling and sealing in the South Shetlands.