''Paranotothenia magellanica'', also known as Magellanic rockcod, Maori cod, blue notothenia or orange throat notothen, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

, belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Nototheniidae, the notothens or cod icefishes. It is native to the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60th parallel south, 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is the seco ...

. " Maori chief" and " black cod", sometimes used for this

, usually refer to fishes from the related

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Notothenia''. Being a perciform fish, it is unrelated to the true

cod Cod (: cod) is the common name for the demersal fish genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family (biology), family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gad ...

s of the order

Gadiformes Gadiformes , also called the Anacanthini, are an order of ray-finned fish that include the cod, hakes, pollock, haddock, burbot, rocklings and moras, many of which are food fish of major commercial value. They are mostly marine fish found thr ...

. This species is commercially important as a food fish.

Taxonomy

''Paranotothenia magellanica'' was first formally described as ''Gadus magellanicus'' in 1801 by the German

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Johann Reinhold Forster Johann Reinhold Forster (; 22 October 1729 – 9 December 1798) was a German Reformed pastor and naturalist. Born in Tczew, Dirschau, Pomeranian Voivodeship (1466–1772), Pomeranian Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Tczew, Po ...

with the type locality given as the

Straits of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natural ...

. The Russian

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

Arkady Vladimirovich Balushkin placed it in its own

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus, '' Paranotothenia'', in 1976. A second species '' P. dewitti'' was described by Balushkin in 1990. The specific name refers to the type locality.

Description

''Paranotothenis magellanica'' has a wide head with a short snout and a mouth which reaches as far back as the middle of the eye. The front part of the snout is steep, with a prominent bulge before the eye. The eyes are noticeable more widely spaced than those of ''Notothenia''. The wide cranium has a rough upper surface with lots of crests, bumps and pits. The crest over the eye extends rearwards quite far. The head is largely unscaled, although there are small patches of scales to the rear of the eyes. The majority of the body scales are non- ctenoid. The

caudal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported only ...

ranges from forked in juveniles, emarginate or infrequently slightly rounded in larger individuals to emarginate in the largest fishes found off Antarctica. They have large scales large with the upper

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

having 36 to 46 tubed scales and the middle lateral line having 5 to 14 tubed scales. There are two

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

s, the first is short-based and contains 3 to 6 spines, the second dorsal fin has 28-31 soft rays while the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

has 22-25 soft rays. This species attains a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , although has been reported. The upper body is dark blue, greyish-green, brown or black while the abdomen is cream, gold-yellow or reddish. The gill membranes can be orange or red.

Distribution and habitat

''Paranotothenia magellanica'' is found in the Southern Ocean. It occurs off the southern tip of South America and off the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

South Georgia South Georgia is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. ...

, South Orkney, South Shetland, Prince Edward, Crozet, Kerguelen, Heard and Macquarie islands as well as around southern New Zealand as far north as

Kaikōura Kaikōura (; ) is a town on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, located on New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1, north of Christchurch. The town has an estimated permanent resident population of as of . Kaikōura is th ...

and around associated islands, it is rare in the Ross Sea. It is found from the surface down to . Large individuals in Antarctic waters are apparently pelagic. Adults elsewhere appear to stay close to shore and may also be pelagic in habit to some extent as they are rarely captured in large bottom trawls.

Biology

''Paranotothenia magellanica'' has

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 ...

fingerlings which have been captured some distance from land over deep water. Off the Kerguelen Islands spawning appears to occur in April and May, a female may lay 60,000-70,000 pelagic eggs which are about 0.8 mm in diameter. Magellanic rockcod feed have been recorded to eat the algae, amphiipos, the crab '' Halicarcinus planatus'', the

squat lobster Squat lobsters are dorsoventrally flattened crustaceans with long tails held curled beneath the cephalothorax. They are found in the two superfamilies Galatheoidea and Chirostyloidea, which form part of the decapod infraorder Anomura, alongs ...

'' Munida gregaria'', copepods, isopods, hydrozoans, larval crustaceans and molluscs, including the bivalve '' Gaimardia trapesina''. The Magellanic cod is the most abundant inshore fish in the waters off Marion Island and off

Macquarie Island Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Protected areas of Tasmania, Tasmania ...

Fisheries

''Paranotothenia magellanica'' is caught as a foodfish.

References

* * Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, ''Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand'', (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) {{Taxonbar, from=Q2259508 Maori cod Commercial fish Taxa named by Johann Reinhold Forster Fish described in 1801