Antarctic toothfish

Dissostichus mawsoni

Nototheniid Fish Reaching Two Hundred Centimeters

Polar
Coastal
Circumpolar Antarctic
Local endemic species
Restricted distribution
Marine fish
Southern Ocean
Polar regions
Fusiform
Large
Cold-water fish

The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni), also known as the Antarctic cod, is a large, black or brown fish found in very cold (even subzero) waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. It is the largest species of bony fish in the Southern Ocean, feeding largely on smaller fishes and crustaceans, and, in turn, preyed on by orcas, other toothed whales, and seals. It is caught for food and marketed as Chilean sea bass together with its sister species, the more northerly Patagonian toothfish (D. eliginoides).

Class: Teleosts
Order: Perches and Allies
Family: Nototheniidae
Genus: Dissostichus
Maximum length: 200 cm
Water: Marine
Body shape: fusiform
Distribution: Southern Ocean: circumpolar coastal Antarctic broadly to the Convergence (Ref. 11892 ). Endemic to the seas around Antarctica (Ref. 5179 ).

Report a correction