The weever fish is a small fish with poison glands on a dorsal fin and gill cover that can give a painful sting.
Weever fish are long, growing up to 37 cm (14.5 inches), and are mainly brown in color.
Echiichthys vipera
Weevers are unusual in not having swim bladders, as do most bony fish, and as a result, sink as soon as they stop actively swimming.
The weever fish has eyes in the top of its head and spines on its back are full of venom.
They are generally buried under the sea bed with their eyes and venomous dorsal fin poking out of the sand. There it waits to snatch prey as it comes past, which consists of shrimp and small fish.
The weever fish are nine extant species of fishes of family Trachinidae. Most species in this family are restricted to the eastern Atlantic (including the Mediterranean). The only exception is the T. cornutus from the southeast Pacific.
Most human stings are inflicted by the lesser weever, which habitually remains buried in sandy areas of shallow water.
Lesser weever fish. By Nabokov at English Wikipedia,
There is one registered death by a weever fish – when an English fisherman was stung repeatedly in 1933, off Dungeness.
Most victims are stung in the hours before and after low tide (especially at springs), They peak in August, but this is probably the result of the greater number of bathers.
If you are stung, immerse the wound in water at 40C (104F) to disperse the poison.
The tuna (also known as a tunny) is a saltwater fish of the mackerel family.
Bigeye tuna pixabay
Sizes vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max. length: 50 cm (1.6 ft), weight: 1.8 kg (4 lb)) up to the warm blooded Atlantic bluefin tuna (max. length: 4.6 m (15 ft), weight: 684 kg (1,508 lb)).
It is believed that very large specimens of the Atlantic bluefin tuna can live up to 50 years.
Most species of fish have white flesh. However, the flesh of the tuna is pink to dark red, because tuna muscle tissue contains greater quantities of myoglobin.
Tuna fish swim at an average speed of 9 miles per hour. They never stop moving.
Tuna By Takashi Hososhima
Bluefin tuna can reach speeds of 40 mph (64 km/h) to pursue prey such as flying fish and mackerel. They also need speed to elude their predators.
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is so powerful, it can cook its own flesh with sudden bursts of muscle activity.
Tuna has been fished since ancient times for food.
Tuna often swim for protection with dolphin pods. This led to fishermen following dolphins to hunt the fish - and to the deaths of huge number of dolphins.
In November 2011, a record was set when a fisherman in Massachusetts caught an 881 lb (400 kg) tuna.
Some varieties of tuna, such as the bluefin and bigeye tuna are threatened by overfishing, dramatically affecting tuna populations in the Atlantic and northwestern Pacific Oceans.
The UK consumes more than a billion tins of tuna a year - much of it yellowfin tuna, one of several types to be commercially fished.
Japan consumes over a quarter of the world's entire catch of tuna.
Pixabay
The record for the highest price paid for a bluefin tuna was one that fetched 155.4 million yen (about £1m) at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market in 2013.
Ohio-born fish food manufacturer Albert P. Halfhill (November 25, 1847 – May 7, 1924) originated the idea of removing the natural fish oil of tuna and substituting it with a vegetable oil before cooking it with compressed hot steam to produce a desirable food. Halfhill is considered the father of the tuna packing industry and was the first to use the slogan "chicken of the sea" as a sales gimmick.
Trout is a ray-finned marine or freshwater fish closely related to the salmon.
Sea trout
DISTRIBUTION
The brown trout (sea trout, lake trout and river trout) is widely distributed in Europe. It extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlas Mountains in North Africa.
The steelhead is a sea-run form of the coastal rainbow trout, which can spend two or three years at sea before returning to fresh water to spawn.
Wild-caught and hatchery-reared forms of rainbow trout have been transplanted and introduced for food or sport in at least 45 countries. Aquaculture of the species are major industries in Chile and Australia.
ANATOMY
To distinguish a trout from other species, look for a second adipose fin along the back, near the tail.
Sea trout are generally silvery and river trout olive brown, both having spotted fins and sides.
Coloration of rainbow trout varies widely, but all adult fish are distinguished by a broad reddish stripe along the lateral line, from gills to the tail, which is most vivid in breeding males.
Typical adult rainbow trout
The rainbow trout that spend their lives in streams and rivers average between 1 and 5 lb (0.5 and 2.3 kg); others, called steelhead trout, live in the ocean or the Great Lakes for two to three years before returning to fresh water to spawn, and may reach 20 lb (9.1 kg).
FUN TROUT FACTS
Franz Schubert wrote a lied "Die Forelle" (The Trout) about fishing. Later Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 was nicknamed the Trout Quintet because the fourth movement is a set of variations on the composer's earlier "Die Forelle"
The steelhead is the official state fish of Washington.
The biggest ever trout caught by a fisherman was a 73.29-pound lake trout caught by Scott Enloe on May 5, 2023 in Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado. The roughly 47-inch fish had a 37-inch girth, which means it was bigger around than the angler himself. Enloe was fishing with his son, Hunter, when he caught the massive trout. The fish was so big that they both needed to work together to pull it into the boat. Enloe released the fish alive after taking measurements and weighing it.
Fishing lakes in remote areas of California are stocked by throwing baby trout out of planes flying over the water at 200 mph.
The swordfish also known as broadbills in some countries, are large, highly migratory, predatory fish characterized by the long sword-like bill protruding from the upper jaw.
Their scientific name is Xiphias gladius. Gladius means sword in Latin.
Wikipedia
A baby swordfish starts out small enough to fit on your finger.
Swordfish commonly reach 3 m (9.8 ft) in length, but can grow up to 4.55 m (14.9 ft) in length and 650 kg (1,430 lb) in weight. Females are larger than males.
The sword fish uses its bill to slash its prey, weakening it and making it easier to catch instead of killing her instantly.
Swordfish don't spear prey at the end of their bills—if anything, they thrash their heads from side to side to slash schools of fish.
Swordfish bills can be turned into swords which are sold for hundreds of pounds on the Internet.
Flickr
A Hawaiian fisherman was killed by a swordfish which punctured his lung in 2015.
They have special organs next to the eyes that keep their brain and eyes warm in cold water. This improves the swordfish's ability to see.
Swordfish have a gland that greases up their faces and heads to make them swim faster.
They can swim up to 16 miles per hour (the often quoted speed of 60 miles per hour is a myth),
The ancient Romans lured swordfish within range of their spears by using boats shaped like their prey.
The International Game Fish Association's all-tackle angling record for a swordfish was a 1,182 lb (535.15 kg) specimen taken off Chile in 1953.
While popular as food, the fish has high mercury levels and should be eaten only once a week or less.
Sushi is a traditional food from Japan which is made with specially prepared rice mixed with vinegar, salt, and sugar. Sushi also contains raw or cooked seafood, and sometimes vegetables as well. The term “sushi” literally means “it's sour.”
Pixiebay
HISTORY
Sushi is thought to have originated in the rice growing regions of Southeast Asia along the Mekong River around 2,000 years ago when fermented fish was eaten wrapped in sour rice. This delicacy was known as nare-zushi ("salted fish.")
It was not until around the 8th century AD that this delicacy appeared in Japan after it had considerably spread to other parts of the world. The earliest reference to sushi in Japan appeared in 718 in the Yōrō Code.
Bowl of Sushi (Painting by Hiroshige)
The original sushi dish, narezushi, was made with fermented fish that was stored in rice. The rice was not eaten, but it was used to help preserve the fish. The rice would absorb the juices from the fish, which would help to prevent the fish from spoiling.
Narezushi is thought to have originated in Southeast Asia, and it was brought to Japan by Buddhist monks in the 7th century. The dish was originally made with salted fish, but it eventually evolved to include vinegared rice.
Today, narezushi is no longer commonly eaten in Japan. However, it is still considered to be a delicacy, and it is sometimes served at special occasions.
In Japan a chef named Hanaya Yohei (1799–1858) conceived of the idea of fresh sliced, raw seafood, served on small fingers of vinegared rice-an instant improvement on the more traditional sushi dishes. He perfected the technique in 1824 and it caught on at once in the stall he had opened in the bustling Ryogoku district of Edo. Yohei called his sushi dish nigirizushi.
In 1923, an earthquake destroyed many of Tokyo's streets. As a result, Nigirizushi chefs were displaced from Edo throughout Japan, popularizing the dish throughout the country.
Nigirizushi Quiethut.com
The first American sushi spot reportedly opened in the 1960s in Los Angeles, but sushi developed a bigger following stateside with the rise of the health food movement.
The advent of modern refrigeration allowed sushi made of raw fish to reach more consumers than ever before. The late 20th century saw sushi gaining in popularity all over the world.
Traditionally Japanese do not eat salmon sushi; they consider it dangerous, since Pacific salmon is prone to parasites. In the early 1980s, Norway had an abundance of salmon and Bjørn Eirik Olsen, a Norwegian businessman decided to teach Japanese consumers that Atlantic salmon was safe to eat raw. It took ten years before Salmon sushi/sashimi finally became popular.
There are almost 4,000 sushi restaurants across the U.S. today, which bring in over $2 billion every year.
SUSHI FUN FACTS
Today, the most common sushi in Japan is nigirizushi. However, in America, Makizushi, which consists of rice rolled around fish and/or vegetables is more popular than nigirizushi.
4 kinds of Californian Makizushi in Brussels.
Sushi is meant to be eaten upside down, so that the fish is the first thing you taste.
Sushi was traditionally eaten with hands, not chopsticks and some Japanese restaurants, even the high-end kind, encourage you to use your hands because the rice is often lightly pressed, so using chopsticks may cause the sushi to fall apart.
Some forms of sushi, notably those containing pufferfish fugu and some kinds of shellfish, can cause severe poisoning if not prepared properly. Victims who ingest pufferfish poison from wrongly-prepared sushi experience symptoms that are similar to nerve gas and die of asphyxiation.
The Emperor of Japan isn't allowed to eat pufferfish for his own safety.
Eating sushi on a Monday can be dangerous, since most fish markets are closed on Sunday, meaning your sushi is probably days old.
In Japan, it takes up to 20 years of school to become a sushi chef, which is years longer than it takes to become a doctor.
Chef preparing sushi
Women have historically been barred from cooking sushi due to a superstition that their hands are too warm.
Pickled ginger and wasabi are more than spices to eat with your sushi; they are also a natural antibiotic. This is important in combination with raw fish because it protects your body against foodborne illnesses such as E. coli.
If you don't eat sushi by the age of 35, there is a 95% chance you never will. As we get older, we are less open to "novelty."
The code from The Matrix movie is actually a sushi recipe the production designer, Simon Whiteley, scanned from one of his wife's Japanese cookbooks.
The harmless Whale Shark holds the title of largest fish, with the record being a 59 footer captured in Thailand in 1919.
Pixibay
The smallest shark in the world is the dwarf lantern shark, which is about 8 inches long.
Sharks do not have a single bone in their bodies. Instead they have a skeleton made up of cartilage which is the same type of tough, flexible tissue that makes up human ears and noses.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
Sharks are the only fish that can’t swim backwards. If you pull a shark backward by the tail, it will die.
The skin of a female shark is much thicker than that of a male because males bite females during mating.
The thresher shark was named for its thresher-like tail, which can be as long as its entire body. It uses its tail as a weapon to stun prey.
Small purple colored thresher caught at Pacifica Pier, California. By Paul E Ester
A great white shark's liver can weigh up to be 24 percent of its body weight.
The great white shark is the only shark that can lift its head above the water to look for prey.
The great white has several rows of sharp, serrated teeth that can number into the thousands. As teeth fall out, they are rapidly replaced by those in the row behind them.
SENSES
A Shark can sense a drop of blood from 2.5 miles away and can detect one part of blood in"100 million" parts of water (i.e 1:100000000).
Sharks have outstanding hearing. They can hear a fish thrashing in the water from as far as 500 metres away.
Sharks can see up to 10 times better than humans in clear water.
Grey reef shark. The original author is Fbattail
40% of a shark's brain is dedicated to its sense of smell.
Sharks smell in "stereo," meaning they can detect the tiny delays in the time it takes for a scent to reach one nostril compared to the other and use it to determine the direction from where the scent is coming. This helps them in tracking their prey.
Most species of sharks do not produce sounds. The majority of sharks rely on their other senses, particularly their exceptional sense of smell and electroreception, to navigate and locate prey. They do not possess vocal cords or a specialized organ for producing sound like some other animals do.
BEHAVIOR
A pup (baby shark) is born ready to take care of itself. The mother shark leaves the pup to fend for itself and the pup usually makes a fast getaway before the mother tries to eat it!
The mating and birth of whale sharks are mysteries. Neither has ever been observed.
A Great White Shark can fast for as long as three months after a big meal.
Every winter, great white sharks swim for 40 days to meet up between Mexico and Hawaii, and nobody knows why.
When a shark is flipped on its back it enters a state of paralysis that lasts for up to fifteen minutes. The phenomenon is known as "Tonic Immobility." In some cases orcas have been seen maneuvering a shark upside down to induce this paralyzed state.
An Orca killed a Great White Shark near California’s Farallon Islands in 2000. The smell of the dead shark's carcass caused all nearby great whites to vanish. A great white with a satellite tag in the area was seen to immediately dive to a depth of 500 meters and then swam to Hawaii.
RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANS
In 2004, California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium became the first to keep a great white shark captive for longer than 16 days — 198 days in all. The female — which was accidentally caught in fishing nets — was kept in a 1.2 million-gallon tank before being released after she attacked other sharks in the exhibit.
Between 50 and 70 people are attacked by sharks every year. On average, five people die of a shark attack per annum.
93% of shark attacks between 1580 and 2010 worldwide were on men.
The world’s most deadly shark is the great white, responsible for 251 of the 1,860 confirmed unprovoked attacks on humans in the 20th century.
Great white sharks don't like the taste of humans as they are bony and low in fat and protein, unlike they're preferred food: seals. They often attack humans only because of low visibility.
Great white shark By Brocken Inaglory
It is estimated that 100 million sharks are killed by humans every year. Many of these were driven by the demand for shark fin soup by Chinese consumers. Usually only the fins are taken, while the rest of the shark is discarded, generally into the sea.
In recent years, 85% of Chinese consumers have given up shark fin soup, largely as a result of campaigning by ex-NBA player Yao Ming.
Sharks fin soup By Arthur Hungry - From Arthur Hungry
For every human killed by a shark, humans kill two million sharks.
If you are attacked, punch at the shark's eyes, snout and gills (on the sides of the head, ahead of the pectoral fins). Play dead and the shark will think you are a free lunch.
HABITAT
Sharks generally do not live in freshwater although there are a few known exceptions, such as the bull shark and the river shark, which can survive and be found in both seawater and freshwater.
Scientists discovered sharks that are living in an active underwater volcano - the Pacific Ocean’s violent Kavachi volcano, which lies 20 miles off the coast of the Solomon Islands. Divers cannot investigate because they would get burns from the acidity and heat.
St Helena is the only place on this planet where the mating of whale sharks has been seen by humans.
Great white sharks rarely survive in captivity. Experts suspect being surrounded by glass might either confuse or overload the shark's electroreception system, which is used to sense the electrical signals given off by fish in the open ocean, not necessarily inside a glass box.
LIFE HISTORY
Shark lifespans vary by species. Most live 20 to 30 years. The spiny dogfish and Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) both live over 100 years.
The Greenland shark is currently believed to be the longest-lived vertebrate species on Earth. A recent examination of 28 specimens in one study determined by radiocarbon dating that the oldest of the animals that they sampled had lived for about 392 ± 120 years (a minimum of 272 years and a maximum of 512 years). The authors further concluded that the species reaches maturity at about 150 years of age.
Scientists believe female Greenland sharks don't reach sexual maturity until they are 156 years old.
They are called 'seahorses' because their head looks like that of a horse.
The body is small and compressed and covered with bony plates raised into tubercles or spines.
The tail is prehensile, and the tubular mouth sucks in small animals as food.
Seahorses don't have stomachs, just intestines to absorb nutrients from food, so they eat almost constantly.
Unlike most fish which have scales, seahorses have skin.
Seahorses are adept at camouflage with the ability to grow and reabsorb spiny appendages depending on their habitat
MATING
Father seahorses are the only male animals to become pregnant. They accept around 50–1,500 eggs from the female, fertilize them, and then carry the eggs for several weeks until they hatch.
Seahorses are monogamous and mate for life.
Only one seahorse in five makes it to adulthood.
BEHAVIOR
Seahorses are the only fish that swim upright.
Seahorses move along at about 0.01 mph, making them what scientists believe to be the slowest fish in the ocean.
Seahorses feed on small crustaceans floating in the water or crawling on the bottom. Helped by their excellent camouflage abilities, seahorses are able to ambush prey that floats within striking range.
HABITAT
Seahorses are mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate waters ranging from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean to Australia.
They live in sheltered areas such as seagrass beds, estuaries, coral reefs, or mangroves.
Colonies have been found in European waters such as the Thames Estuary.
A Sardine isn't actually species of fish but rather a generic name given to various small, oily fish within the herring family of Clupeidae.
The term sardine was first used in English during the early 15th century and probably came from the Italian island of Sardinia, around which sardines were once abundant.
Indian oil sardine
There is sometimes confusion between sardine and pilchard. The terms "sardine" and "pilchard" do not relate to specific species, they describe ways of packing fish. The United Nations and the World Health Organisation cite 21 different species that could be classed as sardines. Moreover, no fishing organisations seem to agree on what the difference is between the two.
Sardines are legally restricted in the UK, following a court ruling of 1915 in favour of an application by a French firm, to the young of the pilchard, caught off Sardinia and Brittany.
In 1980 there were attempts to change this ruling which adversely affects packers of other small fish in the group which are indistinguishable in taste, and are now marketed as sild or brisling.
In 1824, four years after a man from Nantes, Joseph Colin, had the idea for canning sardines in oil, the world's first sardine canning factory started business there.
Sardines are typically tightly packed in a small can which is scored for easy opening – hence the popular English language saying "packed like sardines".
Sardines packed in a tin. By Rl
Sardine tins with ring-pull tops were introduced in the United Kingdom in December 1970. John West Food were the pioneers of the system, which hastened the end of the infuriating key-opener.
Canned sardines are among the few canned products which have their own retinue of connoisseurs (and vintage years).
Whilst at Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher had a cat called Wilberforce whom she doted on. She once bought him back a tin of sardines after a visit to Moscow.
The sardines of the Indo-Pacific are numerous. In the 1980s the South American pilchard, Sardinops sagax, was the most intensively fished species of sardine. Some major stocks declined rapidly in the 1990s.
A school of sardines in the ocean
Morocco is the largest canned sardine exporter in the world and the leading supplier of sardines to the European market. Sardines represent more than 62% of the Moroccan fish catch.
The King Oscar export brand of sardines was founded in 1902 and named after Oscar II who was then king of Sweden and Norway.
From May to July, billions of sardines move north along the coast of South Africa, creating a feeding frenzy.
Fresh sardines are excellent when grilled. They may also be fried, but possess plenty of oil themselves.
The chief use of sardines is for human consumption, but sardine oil has many uses, including the manufacture of paint, varnish and linoleum.
Salmon is the common name for several species of ray-finned marine or freshwater fish in the family Salmonidae. Other fish in the same family include trout grayling and whitefish.
Atlantic salmon
Salmon are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus Salmo) and Pacific Ocean (genus Oncorhynchus). Many species of salmon have been introduced into non-native environments such as the Great Lakes of North America and Patagonia in South America.
The Atlantic salmon has a sense of smell a thousand times better than a dog's.
Adult Atlantic salmon are excellent jumpers. In fact, that's how they got their name. In Latin, salmon means "the leaper," as they have the ability to jump up to 12 feet out of the water.
LIFE CYCLE
The salmon spawning season is between September and January although they occasionally spawn at other times. The orange eggs, about 6 mm/0.in in diameter, are laid on the river bed, fertilized by the male, and then covered with gravel by the female. The incubation period is from five weeks to five months.
Spawning sockeye salmon in Becharof Creek, Becharof Wilderness, Alaska
The young hatched salmon are known as alevins, and when they begin feeding they are called parr.
At about two years old, the salmon's coat becomes silvery, and they are then known as smolts.
Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot in the freshwater streams where they were born; tracking studies have shown this to be mostly true.
Depending on the species, salmon may spend up to four years at sea before returning to their home streams to spawn (at this stage called grilse), often overcoming great obstacles to get there and die.
FARMING
Salmon are intensively farmed in many parts of the world. It is a major contributor to the world production of farmed finfish, representing about US$10 billion annually.
Salmon aquaculture is especially significant in Canada, Chile, Norway and Scotland.
Salmon are increasingly “farmed” in open-net cages, which have low production costs.
Rainbow trout farm in an archipelago of Finland. By Plenz
Another form of salmon production, which is safer but less controllable, is to raise salmon in hatcheries. Once independent, they are released into rivers in an attempt to increase the salmon population. They are then caught when they return to spawn. This system is referred to as ranching. However, it argued that stocking rivers indiscriminately with hatchery fish may destroy the precision of the salmon's homing instinct by interbreeding between those originating in different rivers.
SALMON IN HISTORY
Westminster Abbey in London is built close to where a vision of St Peter is said to have been seen on the Thames by a salmon fisherman named Edric. The Fishermen’s Company offers a salmon to Westminster Abbey each year in memory of this.
In 1825 Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City patented a canning process to preserve salmon and other seafood.
As a child, David Lloyd George poached salmon. Later as a solicitor, he gained a reputation for his defence of poachers.
Water quality has steadily improved in the River Thames since sewers were repaired in the 1960s, and a salmon was caught in the River Thames on November 12, 1974, the first seen in the 20th century. The river is now home to wild salmon,
SALMON AS FOOD
You can cook salmon in the dishwasher. Wrap your salmon tightly in foil and put your dishwasher on the highest and hottest cycle for a perfectly poached salmon.
The Japanese considered raw salmon dangerous, since Pacific salmon was prone to parasites. When Norway found it had too much salmon the Norwegians decided to focus on teaching Japanese consumers that Atlantic salmon was safe to eat raw. It took ten years for Salmon sushi/sashimi to finally become popular.
Salmon is technically a white fish. Farmed salmon gets that reddish pink color only because farmers add in a pigmenting compound to the fishes' food that changes the color of their flesh, which is more appealing to consumers.
AquAdvantage salmon was the first genetically modified animal approved by the US FDA for human consumption.
The phrase "a red herring" is used either to denounce an evasive action or remark intended to divert people's attention from the real issue or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion.
When herrings are kippered by smoking and salting in order to preserve them, they turn reddish-brown.
Red herrings By misocrazy from New York, NY
Three explanations have been given for the derivation of the phrase, all of which are derived from fox hunting. They all refer to the fact that prior to refrigeration herrings were known for being strongly pungent.
The term was invented in 1807 by English politician and journalist William Cobbett, referring to how he used red herrings to lay a false trail, while training hunting dogs in order to divert them from chasing a hare,
In 19th century Englandfox lovers sabotaged the hunt by dragging "smoked" red herrings along the route away from the fox. The dogs became confused, following the strong scent of the herring rather than the fox, hence the phrase "red herring" meaning to follow the wrong clue.
Or, the phrase recalls the practice of fox hunters whilst training their hounds to drag a pungent "red herring" across the animal's trail; its smell was intended to cover up the quarry's scent.
The piranha is a ferocious, schooling, fresh-water fish, which is native to warm lowland streams, rivers and lakes in South America, east of the Andes Mountains.
The word piranha should correctly be pronounced 'piranya' as it is a Portuguese word.
Pirhana - taken at the Newport, Ky aquarium. By Greg Hume - Wikipedia
Piranhas are opportunistic carnivores. Some of their prey includes amphibians, birds, crustaceans, fish, insects, lizards, mollusks, rodents, and carrion (dead meat that they find).
With their razor sharp teeth some species are known to rapidly devour animals. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt witnessed a cow being quickly torn apart and skeletonized by a school of hungry piranhas. He wrote about it in his 1914 bookThrough the Brazilian Wilderness.
According to a 2012 study, the black piranha has the strongest bite force recorded for bony fish.
Piranhas may occasionally attack humans, particularly when water levels are low. In 2011, a series of attacks in the Brazilian state of Piauí resulted in 100 people being injured.
The English common name "pike" is an apparent shortening of "pike-fish", in reference to its pointed head, which resembles the medieval pole-weapon known as the pike.
The plural of pike is pike.
Their coloring is typically grey-green with a mottled or spotted appearance with stripes along their backs, providing camouflage among weeds.
Pike can grow to a maximum recorded length of 1.83 m (6 ft), reaching a maximum recorded weight of 35 kg (77 lb).
Female pike are larger than males.
The muskellunge is the largest species of pike. It is native to large rivers and lakes in North America, and can grow to be over 1.8 m in length (although it is more commonly 0.71–1.22 m), and to weigh up to 32 kg (but typically 6.8–16.3 kg). Muskellunge are apex predators, and they play an important role in the aquatic ecosystem. They help to control populations of other fish, such as bass and walleye.
The world's biggest pike was a muskellunge caught in Lac Courte Oreilles, a large freshwater lake located in northwest Wisconsin, USA, on July 24, 1949, by Cal Johnson. It weighed an impressive 67.48 pounds (30.61 kg) and was 60.25 inches (153 cm) in length, and 33–34 inches (84-86 cm) in girth.
Europe's biggest pike, weighing 55lb 1oz (25 kg), was pulled from Lake Grefeern, Germany by Lothar Louis on October 16, 1986. Unable to net the fish due to its tremendous size, and worried that he would lose it, the German fisherman plunged his hands inside the gill covers to land the pike. Such was Louis' excitement at his huge catch, he he did not feel the pain as the fish's huge teeth sank into both hands as he lifted her up on the bank.
Pikes have sandpaper-like tongues, which they use to turn larger prey around so they can be swallowed head-first.
Pike are predatory feeders eating other fish, insects, small mammals and birds. In fact pike will eat almost anything that doesn't eat them first.
There have been tales of large pike pulling small dogs into the water.
Despite this pike are lazy and avoid fast-flowing water.
The white and mild-tasting flesh of pikes have been eaten since Roman times and remain popular fare in Europe. Nethertheless, the flesh is considered bony, especially due to the substantial (epipleural) "Y-bones".
Larger oike are more easily filleted, while smaller ones are often processed as forcemeat to eliminate their many small bones, and then used in preparations such as quenelles and fish mousse.
The perch is a predatory fish, slender, highbodied and designed to survive in all kinds of waters. Most authorities recognize three species within the perch genus.
The European perch (Perca fluviatilis) is found in Europe and Asia. This species is typically greenish in color with dark vertical bars on its sides with a red or orange coloring in the tips of its fins.
The Balkhash perch (Perca schrenkii) is found in China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is very similar to the European perch, and grows to a comparable size.
The yellow perch (Perca flavescens), smaller and paler than the European perch, is found in North America.
On the top side of the perch, there is a mouth, a pair of nostrils, and two lidless eyes. On the bottom sides are the operculum, which are used to protect the gills.
They have paired pectoral and pelvic fins, and two dorsal fins, the first one spiny and the second soft. These two fins can be separate or joined.
The European perch's distinguishing feature is its saw-like dorsal fin, which is spiny all the way along the point and carries a black spot.
European perch
In fisheries, the European perch tend to a ghost-like pale color. In clear natural water, it displays its impressive dark back and stripes, running down to a greenish flank and light belly, contrasting with its red ventral and anal fins.
The perch’s scales are small and embedded deep in the skin, giving the fish a rough, tough skin, highly resistant to cuts from predators.
When looking through a microscope, the scales look like a plate with growth rings and spikes on the top edges.
Perch have a lateral line system, which a set of sense organs that are sensitive to vibrations in the water.
Yellow perch
An important characteristic of the perch is its ability to camouflage itself when hunting prey and hiding.
Perch feed on smaller fish, shellfish, or insect larvae, but can be caught with nearly any bait.
They have a wide distribution throughout the world, and are very plentiful in the Great Lakes, especially Lake Erie.
Perch can grow to 5lb or more, but the average size in Britain is about 2½ lb.
The official all-tackle world record for a European perch is 2.9 kg (6 lb 6 oz) 3.75 kilograms (8 pounds, 4 ounces), caught by Kalle Vaaranen in Kokar, Aland Islands, Finland, on September 4, 2010.
The largest perch ever recorded was caught in 1943 in Germany and weighed 7 kilograms (15 pounds, 7 ounces). However, this record is not recognized by the IGFA because it was caught using a net.
Mackerel have vertical stripes on their sides which may help them stay in formation when they are schooling.
Mackerel are prolific broadcast spawners and must breed near the surface of the water due to the eggs of the females floating. Individual females lay between 300,000 and 1,500,000 eggs.
Mackerel are the fastest swimming fish in UK waters; They can around fifty metres in ten seconds.
In 2009, Julian Pryke, a fishmonger from Greenwich, South London, successfully cut and gutted 362 mackerel in just one hour, a record he achieved while sitting in a bath.
The flesh of mackerel spoils easily, especially in the tropics, and can cause food poisoning. So, it should be eaten on the day of capture, unless pickled in salt, or refrigerated.
A kipper is a strong smelling preserved whole herring that has been split in butterfly fashion from tail to head, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smouldering woodchips.
After years of experimenting, John Woodger, a fish merchant from North East England, developed smoked kippers in 1843. He originally got the idea after the wooden shed in which he'd left some salted herring caught fire; the fish was rescued and found to be tasty.
Kippers produced in the Isle of Man are exported around the world. The Manx word for 'kipper' is skeddan jiarg, which translates as 'red herring'.
The phrase 'red herring' meaning something true but irrelevant, originates from the use of a kipper to train dogs to follow a scent, or to divert them from the correct route when hunting.
