The navaga (''Eleginus nawaga'') is a relatively small species of fish in the cod family

Gadidae The Gadidae are a family of marine fish, included in the order Gadiformes, known as the cods, codfishes, or true cods. It contains several commercially important fishes, including the cod, haddock, whiting, and pollock. Most gadid species a ...

. It inhabits the

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada ( Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm ( Greenland), Finland, Iceland ...

and subarctic waters of the Barents,

White White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

, and

Kara Sea The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipela ...

s, from the

Kola Bay Kola Bay (russian: Кольский залив) or Murmansk Fjord is a 57-km-long fjord of the Barents Sea that cuts into the northern part of the Kola Peninsula. It is up to 7 km wide and has a depth of 200 to 300 metres. The Tuloma, Rosta ...

to the

Ob River } The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins i ...

estuary. Navaga fish usually occur at shallow depths, along shores with soft bottoms, close to the ice and on the continental shelf. In winter, they live in nearshore waters, where spawning takes place. They are often found in estuaries and can enter fresh water in rivers. In summer, they return to open waters. They feed on crustaceans, benthic animals, and small fish. They can grow to at least to 42 cm but typical adult size is smaller, being only 15–25 cm in the White Sea. The navaga is commercially fished mainly in the winter in the bays of the White Sea. The European navaga is a close relative of the

saffron cod The saffron cod ''(Eleginus gracilis)'' is a commercially harvested fish closely related to true cods (genus '' Gadus''). It is dark grey-green to brown, with spots on its sides and pale towards the belly. It may grow to 55 cm and weigh up t ...

(''E. gracilis''), a

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

sister species.

References

External links

NOAA Photo Library: Eleginus navaga
(picture) {{Taxonbar, from=Q1068996 Gadidae Fish of the Arctic Ocean Fish described in 1792 Taxa named by Johann Julius Walbaum