Atlantic wolffish
Anarhichas lupus
— Where the name comes from
Anarhichas comes from the Greek anarrhicháomai, “to clamber up”: Nordic fishermen saw it hauling itself up nets and rock faces. Lupus is the wolf, for the dentition, which is the most striking thing about it — protruding canines at the front and rows of molars behind, giving it the face of a mastiff.
— Facts
- Group
- Fish · Actinopterygii · Chondrichthyes
- Order
- Perch-likes
- Habitat
- Cold rocky bottoms between 20 and 500 metres
- Range
- The northern Atlantic, from Canada to Scandinavia
- Size
- 60–120 cm, up to 150 cm; 5–20 kg
- Diet
- Urchins, crabs, molluscs, starfish
- Lifespan
- 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
Its blood carries antifreeze proteins that let it live below zero.
- 02
The male guards the eggs for four months without leaving them.
- 03
It replaces all its teeth every year and stops feeding while it does.
— What sets it apart
Every year it loses its whole dentition and grows a new one. Eating urchins and shellfish wears its teeth blunt, and at the end of summer it replaces them all at once: for some weeks it cannot feed and lives on reserves, then starts again. Meanwhile its habit of devouring sea urchins makes it important to northern ecosystems — where it has gone, urchins multiply and mow down the kelp forests, turning them into bare rock.
