The Antarctic silverfish (''Pleuragramma antarctica''), or Antarctic herring, is a species of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or hor ...

belonging to the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Nototheniidae : ''In some scientific literature, the term "cod icefish" is used to identify members of this family. This should not be confused with the term "icefish," which refers to the "white-blooded" fishes of the family Channichthyidae. See Icefish (disam ...

, the notothens or cod icefishes. It is native to the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

and the only truly

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

fish in the waters near

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. It is a

keystone species A keystone species is a species which has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance, a concept introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaini ...

in the

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

of the Southern Ocean.Bottaro M., Oliveri D., Ghigliotti L., Pisano E., Ferrando S. & Vacchi M. (2009). "Born among the ice: first morphological observations on two developmental stages of the Antarctic silverfish ''Pleuragramma antarcticum'', a key species of the Southern Ocean". ''Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries'' 19(2); 249-259. . While widely distributed around the Antarctic, the species appears to have largely disappeared from the western side of the northern

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

, based on a 2010 research cruise funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

under the

US Antarctic Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

Taxonomy

The Antarctic silverfish was first formally described in 1902 by the Belgian-born British

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

George Albert Boulenger George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botani ...

with the type locality given as

Victoria Land Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. It ...

in Antarctica. It is the only species in the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus ''Pleuagramma'' which was also described by Boulenger. Some authorities place this taxon in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Pleuragrammatinae, but the 5th edition of ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011) is a standard reference for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the ...

'' does not include subfamilies in the Nototheniidae. The genus name is a compound of ''pleuro'' meaning "side" with ''a'' which means "without" and ''gramma'' meaning "line", an allusion to the absence of a

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

Description

Antarctic silverfish usually grow to about in length, with a maximum of . The maximum reported weight of this species is 200 g. Antarctic silverfish have a maximum reported age of 20 years. When alive, they are pink with a silver tint, but turn silver only after death. All the fins are pale. The dorsal side is slightly darker. This

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

marine fish is one of several in the region that produce antifreeze glycopeptides as an adaptation against the extreme cold of Antarctic waters.

Ecology

The

postlarvae Crustaceans may pass through a number of larval and immature stages between hatching from their eggs and reaching their adult form. Each of the stages is separated by a moult, in which the hard exoskeleton is shed to allow the animal to grow. The ...

, in size, feed on eggs of

calanoid Calanoida is an order of copepods, a group of arthropods commonly found as zooplankton. The order includes around 46 families with about 1800 species of both marine and freshwater copepods between them. Description Calanoids can be distinguis ...

s (Calanoida), sea snails ''

Limacina ''Limacina'' is a genus of swimming predatory sea snails commonly known as sea butterflies in the family Limacinidae. This genus contains some of the world's most abundant gastropod species.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2012). Limacina. Accessed throu ...

'' and

tintinnid Tintinnids are ciliates of the choreotrich order Tintinnida, distinguished by vase-shaped shells, the name deriving from a Latin source meaning a small tinkling bell, that are called'' loricae'', which are mostly protein but may incorporate min ...

s (Tintinnida). The postlarvae live at depths of up to . Juveniles feed on

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

s (Copepoda), mostly on '' Oncaea curvata'' and can be found at depths of , while adults can be found at depths . As their size increases, so does the size of their prey items. Mature females may spawn for the first time at 7–9 years of age. Antarctic silverfish are the most abundant pelagic fish species in the High Antarctic shelf waters of the Southern OceanCarlig, E., Di Blasi, D., Ghigliotti, L. et al. Diversified feeding strategies of Pleuragramma antarctica (Nototheniidae) in the Southern Ocean. Polar Biol 42, 2045–2054 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-019-02579-0 and are important high-caloric prey species for high-trophic animals such as

Adelie penguins Adelie or Adélie may refer to: * Adélie Land, a claimed territory on the continent of Antarctica * Adelie Land meteorite Adelie Land is a meteorite discovered on December 5, 1912, in Antarctica by Francis Howard Bickerton (1889-1954), a membe ...

, marine flying birds and Weddell seals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antarctic Silverfish Nototheniidae Fish of Antarctica Fish described in 1902