Author: (Linnaeus, 1758)
Melanogrammus aeglefinus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Melanogrammus aeglefinus (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: first dorsal finrays 15-16, second dorsal finrays 19-21, third dorsal finrays 19-23; first anal finrays 23-24, second anal finrays 22-23. Vertebrae 52-57. Colour: dark greeny brown, sides lighter, belly white. Size: to 112 cm SL, usually 50-75 cm.
Habitat: offshore, benthic at 40-30 m depth, occasionally in midwater, young pelagic until 1 year old. Behaviour: in shoals, with feeding and spawning migrations. Food: bottom invertebrates, ophiuroids, polychaetes, molluscs, echinoids, small fish; young feed on copepods. Reproduction: from February to June, mainly March and April, at 100-150 m.
Distribution: North Atlantic and adjacent seas, from Portugal to Iceland, Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, White Sea (occasionally), Skagerrak, Kattegat, also western North Atlantic, off Greenland (occasionally).
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Schmidt, 1905: 31, pl. II (fig. 10-17);1906: 5, fig. 10, pl. I (fig. 17-18) | Ehrenbaum, 1909: 219, fig. 83 | Pertseva, 1936: 10, 12, 22, fig. 5-6.
Otoliths (sagitta). Fryd, 1901: 26 | Scott, 1906: 63, pl. II A (fig. 1-5), pl. IV (fig. 1-2) | Shepherd, 1916, fig. 157 (2) | Frost, 1926: 485, pl. XXII (fig. 8) | Schmidt, 1968: 14, pl. 2 (fig. 26), pl. 15.