Giant grenadier

Giant grenadier
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Gadiformes
Family: Macrouridae
Genus: Albatrossia
D. S. Jordan & C. H. Gilbert, 1898
Species: A. pectoralis
Binomial name
Albatrossia pectoralis
(C. H. Gilbert, 1892)

The giant grenadier, Albatrossia pectoralis, is a very large rattail, the only member of the genus Albatrossia, found in the north Pacific from northern Japan to the Okhotsk and Bering seas, east to the Gulf of Alaska, and south to northern Baja California in Mexico, at depths between 140 and 3,500 m. Its length is up to 2.1 m. The giant grenadier has the usual greatly elongated, pointed tail of the rattails.

Ecology

Giant grenadiers are apex predators on the upper continental slopes of the northern Pacific. Their main prey items are Octopoteuthis deletron squid and Vampyroteuthis infernalis vampire squid.[1]

References

  1. Drazen, Jeffrey C; Buckley, Troy W; Hoff, Gerald R (2001). "The feeding habits of slope dwelling macrourid fishes in the eastern North Pacific". Deep-Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers. 48 (3): 909–935. doi:10.1016/S0967-0637(00)00058-3.


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