|
In November 2000, experienced fisherman Olaf Sólsker, of the Faroe Islands, landed something off the west coast of Greenland that he'd never seen before. It was hardly surprising. It was a Patagonian toothfish (Dissotichus eleginoides) known only in the cold oceans around Antarctica, confirmed Peter Møller, of the University of Copenhagen, and colleagues.
"Nothing like it has ever been caught off the Western Arctic," says team member Jorgen Nielsen. The furthest north a toothfish had ever been found before is Uruguay.
Prized for its firm white flesh, the toothfish (also known as Chilean sea bass) is found on restaurant tables around the world. It is now at the height of its popularity as an alternative to cod, stocks of which are dwindling fast in northern oceans.
But the 1.8-metre-long, 70-kilogram specimen caught off Greenland doesn't mean that cod fishermen should get their hopes up. Given that Greenland's waters have been extensively fished for the past 10-20 years, the presence of an unknown toothfish population is unlikely.
This doughty individual probably swam to Greenland from its home near the Antarctic. Toothfish cannot tolerate water warmer than 11 °C, so to survive its trip across the equator, the team concludes, the animal must have slunk through chilly, deep-water currents that flow from north to south across the Atlantic.
The toothfish was caught at a depth of 1,300 metres. "It was so deep it could stick to a suitable temperature," says Neilsen. Although a 10,000-kilometre trip is a record for a toothfish, ocean-going predators such as tuna frequently swim even more impressive distances.
References
Møller, P.R., Nielsen, J.G. & Fossen, I. Fish migration: Patagonian toothfish found off Greenland. Nature, 421, 599, (2003). |Article|
Nature News Service
Top
|
