The Arctic skate (''Amblyraja hyperborea'') is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

in the family Rajidae. It lives near the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

between 140 and 2,500 m deep in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

and waters around Canada and northern and north-western Europe, in the northern Pacific Ocean, and in waters surrounding Antarctica and New Zealand. The Arctic skate is about 1 m long and is gray-brown with large dark spots. Its underside is white with dark patterns. It has thorns in line from back to near the end of its tail. It is oviparous; its

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

are capsules with hard horns on each corner. It eats all sorts of small animals at the bottom of the sea.

Taxonomy

This species was first described by

Robert Collett Robert Collett (2 December 1842 – 27 January 1913) was a Norwegian zoologist. Collett was director and curator of the Zoological Museum at University of Oslo. Robert Collett was born at Christiania (now Oslo), Norway. He was the eldest child ...

in 1879 and named ''Raja hyperborea.''

Conservation

The Arctic skate is classified as being of "least concern" by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In New Zealand, the Department of Conservation has classified the Arctic skate as "Not Threatened" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q238519 Amblyraja Fish described in 1879 Fish of New Zealand Taxa named by Robert Collett