''Anarhichas orientalis'', the Bering wolffish, is a marine fish in the family

Anarhichadidae Anarhichadidae, the wolffishes, sea wolves or wolf eels, is a family of marine ray finned fishes belonging to the Order (biology), order Perciformes. These are predatory, eel shaped fishes which are native to the cold waters of the Arctic, North ...

, the "wolffish".

Description

The Bering wolffish has an elongate and laterally compressed body, with a thin caudal peduncle. It has a steep snout, and, like other wolffish, has long, canine teeth that protrude out past the tips of the jaws. It can grow to 112 cm and 15 kg in weight, is dark brown in colour and lacks any distinct markings other than some slight blotching or palish marbling. The head of juveniles may have multiple dark spots and four to five dark coloured longitudinal stripes on the upper body. The head length is approximately 19 to 21 percent of the total body length. This species differs from the five other species in the genus in having at least 53 anal rays, 81 to 86 dorsal fin spines, and more rounded, deeper caudal fins.

Distribution

The Bering wolffish species has an inconsistent distribution. It is found from the Northeastern Pacific Ocean from

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

to the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

, to

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. Although insufficiently documented, it is also known to occur across the Northwestern Pacific, the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea ( , ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre, p=ˈbʲerʲɪnɡəvə ˈmorʲe) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasse ...

and

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

Habitat

The Bering wolffish lives on rocky, gravel and sandy substrates, and algae-encrusted bottoms in shallow, inshore locations. The Bering wolffish resides in depths of 1-2 to 10-50 meters.

Behaviour

Bering wolffishes are known to practice nesting habits. They produce very big eggs which hatch into larvae remaining in the

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...

zone.

Diet

Benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...

invertebrates such as crabs and

molluscs Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

References

External links

Illustration
{{Taxonbar, from=Q28810 orientalis Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas Fish described in 1814 Articles containing video clips