European Hake

• It eats small fish and crustaceans; the young feed on zooplankton.
• It lives in demersal waters of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
• It supports a heavily exploited fishery in European waters.
• By day it stays close to the bottom, and by night it rises and spreads through the water column to hunt.
• It can be identified by the inside of its mouth and its gill cavity, which are completely black.
• From 30 cm onwards it feeds mainly on blue whiting, and on horse mackerel and small fish when younger; it is a key predator in the transfer of energy between trophic levels.
• Overfishing made it mature earlier and smaller: in the Bay of Biscay the size at first maturity fell by some 10 cm between 1996 and 2004, and on the Galician shelf by some 15 cm between 1980 and 1988. It is a measurable evolutionary response to fishing pressure.
• It spawns in batches over a long season, which runs from December to May in Iberian waters and comes later the further north you go.
• Its scientific name comes from the Latin mar and lucius, the pike: the pike of the sea.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat & environment

Demersal waters of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, from the continental shelf into deep water

Birth weight

Pelagic larva after hatching from the egg

Size at birth

Pelagic larva at hatching

Sexual maturity

Male: 2.5-3 years | Female: 4-4.4 years

Litter / clutch size

~300,000 eggs per female at each spawning

Sources consulted: FishBase; ScienceDirect; ResearchGate; Oxford Academic ICES; DOAJ