Giant grenadier

Taxobox
name = Giant grenadier


image_caption =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Actinopterygii
ordo = Gadiformes
familia = Macrouridae
genus = "Albatrossia"
species = "A. pectoralis"
binomial = "Albatrossia pectoralis"
binomial_authority = Richardson, 1846

The giant grenadier, "Albatrossia pectoralis" , is a very large rattail, the only member of the genus "Albatrossia", found in the north Pacific from northern Japan to the Okhotsk and Bering seas, east to the Gulf of Alaska, and south to northern Baja California in Mexico, at depths of between 140 and 3,500 m. Its length is up to 2.1 m.

The giant grenadier has the usual greatly elongated pointed tail of the rattails. The snout is low, slightly protruding beyond the large mouth, without a spinous terminal scute. Scales are small, slightly oblong, with moderate-sized median ridge, without spines or with few weak spinules. The swim bladder is small.

Adults feed mainly on cephalopods, fish and shrimps; other food items include ctenophores, echinoderms, worms, crabs, and amphipods.

Reproduction is oviparous, with planktonic larvae.

Coloration is grey-brown on the head and body, each scale having a prominent dark posterior border, fins and lateral line darker. It is black in the mouth, gill cavity, and on the peritoneum.

References

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