Antarctic cod
From Freepedia
| Antarctic Cod | ||||||||||||||
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| Dissostichus mawsoni Norman, 1937 |
The Antarctic Cod, fish of the Nototheniidae family that includes Mawson's cod (Dissostichus mawsoni), is famous for producing antifreeze protein that allows it to hide just under the Antarctic ice. With a heartbeat of once every six seconds, research involving Antarctic cod may lead to advances in cardiac medicine involving conditions where human hearts beat slowly during certain medical procedures or fail to beat fast enough due to hypothermia.
Despite its name, the Antarctic Cod is quite unrelated to the true cod; it is not even in the same order, being classified as a perciform rather than a gadiform.
These large, sluggish fish can be found swimming around on the sea bottom, particularly near the shallow water on the coast and in seaweed waiting for prey to swim past, though Notothenia rossi is more active than other Antarctic cod species. Fully grown, these grayish fish are among the biggest in the Antarctic, at least 5 feet long and weighing anywhere between 40 - 200 pounds. As they mature, their heads grow faster than the rest of the body, resulting in a eerie malformed appearance among the larger specimens. When eaten, the two thin cuts of meat from the sides of the body are oily and very appetizing with a taste similar to cod, which led to the name Antarctic Cod. Other than man, their primary enemies are the Weddell seal, the leopard seal, and flocks of shag. They are sometimes confused with the Patagonian toothfish.
Antarctic Cod have a lightweight cartilaginous skeleton, no swim bladder and fatty deposits which allow them to live in middle level waters. They also have retinas that are well adapted to the low light levels. Snow or ice on the surface of the sea, even in summer, reduces light levels to that of the great depths in the open oceans. Coloring is black to olive brown and lighter on the undersides. They have a broad head, narrow body, two fins running along the back and belly, large pectorial fins, and an additional small fin in front of the back fin. Its distribution range is below 65 degrees South, which is caught only in the Ross Sea where there is enough ice-free water south of that latitude in summer. The Antarctic Cod fishery doubled from 626 tonnes in 2000-2001 to 1321 tonnes in 2001-2002. The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has limited fishing to 'sustainable' levels since 1980.
