Blue Marlin

• The size difference between the sexes is enormous: the largest females weigh more than four times as much as the largest males, which rarely exceed 160 kg. Every record specimen is a female.
• The bill, measured from the eye to the tip, accounts for around 20% of the total length.
• It hunts by charging into a school of fish at full speed and striking with its bill to stun them, then returns to eat the injured prey.
• Its Vulnerable listing is based on a decline of between 33 and 37% over three generations, some 27 years. It is overexploited in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, though not in the Pacific.
• Most catches are not targeted: it is taken as bycatch in the tuna and swordfish longline fisheries.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bony fish)

Habitat and environment

Tropical and subtropical pelagic waters; its range shifts seasonally, moving away from the equator in the warm months and contracting back towards it in the cold ones

Sexual maturity

Females at around 179 cm and males at around 130 (fork length, western Pacific)

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Makaira nigricans