Bony fish · Gadiformes · Phycidae

Squirrel Hake

Urophycis chuss

Least Concern

The species is abundant and widely distributed; it faces no significant short-term risk. See full glossary

The red hake of the north-western Atlantic, a relative of the cods, with an elongated body of reddish brown. It lives over soft bottoms and hunts crustaceans, squid and small fish by night. Its pelvic fins are reduced to two long sensory filaments.

Size

30 cm – 65 cm

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Nocturnal

Active mainly at night.

Social structure

Solitary

Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.

Sighting difficulty

Easy

OceanCarnivore Nocturnal Solitary Fish Ocean

2countries

Fun facts

Its pelvic fins have turned into two tactile filaments it trails over the bottom like a blind person's canes to locate buried prey.
The juveniles shelter inside the mantle cavity of the sea scallop Placopecten magellanicus, a curious case of association between a fish and a mollusc.
The juveniles live inside living scallops. They slip into the mantle cavity of the Atlantic sea scallop and spend their first months there, protected from predators.
Its pelvic fins are reduced to two long, sensitive filaments that it trails along the bottom and uses to locate prey by touch, not for swimming.
It is fast-growing and short-lived compared with other gadids, which makes its population respond quickly to fishing.
It is caught mainly as bycatch alongside other bottom-dwelling species of the north-west Atlantic.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type: Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)
Habitat & environment: Soft bottoms of the north-western Atlantic, between 30 and 600 m

Sources consulted: FishBase (Froese & Pauly, eds.); Lista Roja de la UICN; NOAA Fisheries; Steimle et al., Essential Fish Habitat Source Documents