The Okhotsk atka mackerel (''Pleurogrammus azonus''), also known as the Arabesque greenling, is a mackerel-like species in the family Hexagrammidae. It is commonly known as hokke in Japan and imyeonsu in Korean. The primary population of the fish is found off the Sea of Okhotsk. According to legend, it was discovered by

Nichiji Nichiji (日持; February 10, 1250 – after 1304), also known as Kaikō, was a Buddhist disciple of Nichiren who traveled to Hokkaido, Siberia, and China. Nichiji was born in Suruga Province, the second child of a large and powerful family ...

Distribution and habitat

The Okhotsk atka mackerel is found in the northwest Pacific Ocean occurring in Primorskii Krai in Russia, the Sea of Okhotsk east to the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

south to

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefecture ...

and Tsushima in Japan and the

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour ter ...

. It is an

oceanodromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousa ...

, demersal fish found at depths from the surface to .

Taxonomy

The Okhotsk atka mackerel was first formally described in 1913 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Charles William Metz with its type locality given as Nampo in North Korea. This species is occasionally considered synonymous with the

Atka mackerel The Atka mackerel (''Pleurogrammus monopterygius'') is a mackerel in the family Hexagrammidae. Atka mackerel are common in the northern Pacific ocean, and are one of only two members of the genus '' Pleurogrammus'' - the other being the Arabe ...

, ''P. monopterygius'' (Nelson 1994). However, it is probably a separate species.* Crow, Karen D., Ziyusei Kanamoto, and Giacomo Bernardi.
Molecular phylogeny of the hexagrammid fishes using a multi-locus approach
. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 32 (2004) 986–997 This fish was also documented as ''Stellistius katsukii'' but the older name ''Pleurogrammus azonus'' takes precedence.

Biology

The juvenile Okhotsk atka mackerel gather in large schools close the surface but the adults are benthic. The females lay egg masses within crevices or in gravel along rocky coasts at depths of less than , these are guarded by the males.

As food

Fisheries capture of Pleurogrammus azonus

The Okhotsk atka mackerel is an important fish, and approximately 100,000 tons of the species were harvested each year throughout the late 20th century. Known in

Japanese cuisine Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan (Japanese: ) is based on rice with miso soup and oth ...

as '' hokke'' and in Korean cuisine as imyeonsu ( 임연수), the fish can be fresh, dried, or frozen, and can be served raw, boiled, grilled or fried.

Notes

References

* * Nelson, J.S., 1994. Fishes of the World. Wiley, New York. * Shinohara, G. and K. Amaoka, 1994. Stellistius katsukii Jordan & Tanaka, 1927, a junior synonym of Pleurogrammus azonus Jordan & Metz, 1913 (Scorpaeniformes: Hexagrammidae). Jap. J. Ichthyol. 40(4):487-490. {{DEFAULTSORT:mackerel, atka, Okhotsk

Okhotsk atka mackerel The Okhotsk atka mackerel (''Pleurogrammus azonus''), also known as the Arabesque greenling, is a mackerel-like species in the family Hexagrammidae. It is commonly known as hokke in Japan and imyeonsu in Korean. The primary population of the fish ...

Sea of Okhotsk