Cutlassfish, Largehead Hairtail, Ugly As Sin. Regardless of what you call this thing, it's strikingly weird. Occurring throughout the world in relatively shallow nearshore waters, this species shows a feeding pattern known as "nocturnal vertical migration". What this means is that schools of adults hover about 300 feet off the ocean floor during the day, doing, I dunno... cutlassfish things, and then at night, they swim upwards towards the surface where they eat all sorts of delightful nektonic and planktonic crustaceans, little fishes, and squidlets.
Although this species is important in the USA only as live bait for larger species, it is a food fish on its own in many other countries. Apparently, the global take on this species has been increasing recently as evidenced by this graph: Global Cutlassfish Take. If you want more info, here's a good site: The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization Treatment
These photos were taken in a fish market in Naples, Italy, July 2009.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment