''Merluccius paradoxus'', the deep-water Cape hake, is a

merluccid hake The merlucciidae, commonly called merluccid hakes , are a family of cod-like fish, including most hakes. They are native to cold water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and typically are found at depths greater than in subtropical, temperate, ...

of the genus ''

Merluccius ''Merluccius'' is a genus of merluccid hakes from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, where mainly found relatively deep. The generic name is derived from French ''mer'' ("sea") and Latin ''lucius'', " pike." Species The 14 recognized species in t ...

'', found in the south-eastern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

, along the coast of

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

, south of

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

. Its range extends in decreasing abundance around the southern coast of Africa and into the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, but it is at its most plentiful in the cold, nutrient-rich fishing grounds of the

Benguela Current The Benguela Current is the broad, northward flowing ocean current that forms the eastern portion of the South Atlantic Ocean gyre. The current extends from roughly Cape Point in the south, to the position of the Angola-Benguela Front in the no ...

. In

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, in combination with ''Merluccius capensis'', the shallow-water Cape hake, it is one of the most important commercial food fishes and locally is generally known as "

stockfish Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks (which are called "hjell" in Norway) on the foreshore. The drying of food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage li ...

" (this English name being derived from the

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

''stokvis''). available for download at http://www.fao.org Very similar to ''M. merluccius'' (European hake), it has an average length of 40–60 cm, up to a maximum of about 80 cm. It lives close to the bottom in muddy areas on the continental shelf and slope. It usually is to be found at depths of 200 to 850 m, although most commonly below 400 m. Immature specimens feed on small deep-sea fishes and crustaceans, especially

Euphausiacea Krill ''(Euphausiids)'' (: krill) are small and exclusively marine crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, found in all of the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian word ', meaning "small fry of fish", which is also often a ...

. Mature hake feed mainly on fish, squid, and crustaceans, especially

Mysidacea The Mysidacea is a group of shrimp-like crustaceans in the superorder Peracarida, comprising the two extant orders Mysida and Lophogastrida Lophogastrida is an Order (biology), order of malacostracan crustaceans in the superorder Peracarida, c ...

and Euphausiacea. Little information is available on its migratory habits as compared to those of ''M. capensis'', which has been fairly well studied. The deep-water Cape hake is often fished together with ''M. capensis'', which usually occurs at shallower depths. Most reported commercial catches combine both species, but towards the northwest coast of Southern Africa, in the region of Angola, ''M. paradoxus'' does not occur.

References

* paradoxus Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Marine fish of South Africa Fish of Namibia Fish described in 1960 {{Gadiformes-stub