Pacific Fishes

Hunchback salmon

Hunchback salmon, also known as Gorbusha is one of the five different species of Pacific salmon, each with its own unique characteristics in size, colour and flavour. Living only two years, hunchback salmon is the smallest of the Pacific salmon. It is the most plentiful of the five species. It has a delicate flavour and light flesh colour.

Typically, hunchback salmons are  anadromous: they are born in fresh water, migrate to the ocean, then return to fresh water to reproduce. However, there are rare species that can only survive in fresh water habitats. The salmon spend about one to five years (depending on the species) in the open ocean where they will become sexually mature. The adult salmon returns primarily to its natal stream to spawn. Each year, the fish experiences a period of rapid growth, often in summer, and one of slower growth, normally in winter. This results in rings (annuli) analogous to the growth rings visible in a tree trunk. Freshwater growth shows as densely crowded rings, sea growth as widely spaced rings; spawning is marked by significant erosion as body mass is converted into eggs and milt.

Freshwater streams and estuaries provide important habitat for many salmon species. They feed on terrestrial and aquatic insects, amphipods, and other crustaceans while young, and primarily on other fish when older. Eggs are laid in deeper water with larger gravel, and need cool water and good water flow (to supply oxygen) to the developing embryos. Mortality of salmon in the early life stages is usually high due to natural predation and human induced changes in habitat, such as siltation, high water temperatures, low oxygen conditions, loss of stream cover, and reductions in river flow.

Habitats salmon: the south of Alaska, Arctic Ocean, Kolyma River, Indigirka, Lena, Yana, the Bering and Okhotsk seas, Comoro and Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Hokkaido.

Most of the attempts to breed salmon in other parts of the world have been largely unsuccessful. It may be noted though the successful transfer salmon into the area of Murmansk water, the rivers of British Columbia and the area of Newfoundland.

Humpback salmon is fed more calorie than Siberian salmon. It prefers small fish, fries and cancroids.

Hanchback salmon fishing is usually irregular. For example, in Primorye, it runs  every odd year. On the Kamchatka Peninsula and Amrue it happens vice versa.

Taimen

The taimen (Hucho taimen), also known as Siberian taimen and Siberian salmon, is a species of fish in the salmon family (family Salmonidae) of order Salmoniformes.

The taimen is distributed from the Volga and Pechora River basins east to the Yana River in the north and that of the Amur River in the south. On a larger scale, this includes parts of the Caspian and Arctic drainages in Eurasia and portions of the Pacific drainage in Mongolia and Russia (the Amur River).

Coloration varies geographically, but is generally olive green on the head blending to reddish brown in the tail. Adipose, anal, and caudal fins are often dark red. The belly ranges from nearly white to dark gray. The taimen is the largest salmonid in the world. The maximum size is not well known, but a fish caught in the Kotui River in Russia with a length of 210 cm  and a weight of 105 kg  is the largest reliable record.

Taimen feeds with fries and cancroids. Taimen is a valuable food fish. The taimen caviar is also valuable. But in Russia it is less popular then hanchback salmon and it is  fished less.

Atheriniformes

Atheriniformes, also known as the silversides, is an order of ray-finned fish that are found worldwide in tropical and temperate marine and freshwater environments.

Atheriniforms are generally elongate and silvery in colour, although exceptions do exist. They are typically small fish, with the largest being the jacksmelt, with a head-body length of 44 cm, and the smallest species, such as the Bangkok minnow, being only 2 cm in adult length.

Members of the order usually have two dorsal fins, the first with flexible spines, and an anal fin with one spine at the front. The lateral line is typically weak or absent. Atheriniform larvae share several characteristics; the gut is unusually short, there is a single row of melanophores along the back, and the fin rays do not become evident until some time after hatching. They scatter their eggs widely, with most species attaching them to aquatic plants.

Sockeye salmon

Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), also called red salmon or blueback salmon, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Pacific Ocean. The same species when it occurs in landlocked bodies of water is called the Kokanee. It is the third most common species of Pacific salmon, after Pink and Chum salmon.

A sockeye can be as long as 840 millimetres (33 in) and weigh 4 to 8 lbs, up to 14 lbs. Its colouration changes as it migrates from saltwater to freshwater in preparation for spawning. In freshwater, its colour is bright red with a pale green head; females may have green and yellow marks or stains. Its colour in saltwater is bluish-green on top, silvery on the bottom, with uniform, shiny skin.

Sockeye salmon spawn mostly in streams having lakes in their watershed. The young fish, known as fry, spend from zero to three years in the freshwater lake before migrating to the ocean, some stay in the lake and do not migrate to the sea. The fish that migrate spend from one to four years in the salt water, and thus are four to six years old when they return to spawn in summer (July-August). Migration back to the home river is thought to be done using the characteristic smell of the stream, and possibly the sun.

Some young fish spend as long as four years in fresh water lakes before migrating to the sea. In rivers without lakes, many of the young move to the ocean quite soon after hatching. These salmon mature after one to four years in the ocean. Some Sockeye Salmon live and reproduce in lakes and are called "kokanee." They are much smaller than the ones that go to the ocean and are rarely over 350 millimeters (14 in) long. In Okanagan Lake and possibly in other locations there are two populations of Kokanee. One spawns in streams and one spawns in the lake near the shore.

Lemonema 

Lemonema, the north representative of the world fishes, are widely distributed in north-western Pacific Ocean from the shores of Japan and the southern Sea of Okhotsk to the north to the Bering Sea. It’s less common in Alaska. Lemonema spawns to the south of the Honshu island, where in early spring almost all mature specimens are concentrated. After spawning in April and May, lemonema begins to move along the island of Honshu to the north. Lemonemy length reaches 72 cm, weight - 1400 g, and life expectancy - 17 years.

Pollock

Pallock or Theragra chalcogramma can grow to 1.07 m and can weigh up to 21 kg. The fish has a strongly-defined silvery lateral line running down the sides. Above the lateral line the color is a greenish black. The belly is white. It can be found in water up to 180 m deep over rocks, and anywhere in the water column.

Alaska pollock or walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) and the rarer Norwegian pollock (Theragra finnmarchica) generally spawn in late winter and early spring on Southeast Bering Sea. The Alaskan pollock fishery in the Bering Sea fishery is the largest single-species food fish fishery in the world.

Sauries

Sauries are fish of the family Scomberesocidae. Sauries are marine epipelagic fish which live in tropical and temperate waters. These fish often jump while swimming near the surface, skimming the water. The jaws of sauries are beak-like, ranging from long, slender beaks to relatively short ones with the lower jaw only slightly elongated. The mouth openings of sauries, however, are small and the jaws have weak teeth. The most distinctive feature of sauries, however, is the presence of a row of small finlets behind the dorsal and anal fins. They also lack swim bladders. Sauries grow to a maximum length of about 46 centimetres, but the group also includes the smallest of all epipelagic fish, Cololabus adacetus, which an adult length of just 7.5 centimetres.

They are harvested commercially as a food fish; Pacific saury are consumed often in Japanese and Korean cuisine. The fish is usually grilled.

Herring

Herring are small, oily fish of the genus Clupea found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic, including the Baltic Sea. Herrings are forage fish which move in vast schools, coming in spring to the shores of Europe and America, where they are caught, salted and smoked in great quantities. Canned "sardines" (or pilchards) seen in supermarkets may actually be sprats or round herrings. In The Netherlands, herring have played a major role in historical and economic development dating back to the 14th century.

All of the 200 species in the family Clupeidae share similar distinguishing features. They are silvery colored fish that have a single dorsal fin. Unlike most other fish, they have soft dorsal fins that lack spines, though some species have pointed scales that form a serrated keel. They have no lateral line and have a protruding lower jaw. Their overall size varies from species to species: the Baltic herring is small, usually about 14 to 18 centimeters in length, the Atlantic herring can grow to about 46 cm  in length and weigh up to 680 g, and Pacific herring grow to about 38 cm.

Young herring feed on phytoplankton and as they mature they start to consume larger organisms. Adult herring feed on zooplankton, tiny animals that are found in oceanic surface waters, and small fish and fish larvae. Copepods and other tiny crustaceans are the most common zooplankton eaten by herring. During daylight herring stay in the safety of deep water, feeding at the surface only at night when there is less chance of predation. They swim along with their mouths open, filtering the plankton from the water as it passes through their gills.

Herring are an important economic fish. Adult fish are harvested for their meat and eggs. In Southeast Alaska herring is sold as baitfish.

Herring are very high in healthy long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. They are a source of vitamin D.

Large Baltic herring slightly exceeds recommended limits with respect to PCB and dioxin. Nevertheless, the health benefits from the fatty acids are more important than the risk from dioxin; their cancer-reducing effect is statistically stronger than the cancer-causing effect of PCBs and dioxins. The contaminant levels depend on the age of the fish which can be inferred from their size. Baltic herrings larger than 17 cm may be eaten twice a month, while herrings smaller than 17 cm can be eaten freely.

Terpug

Terpug is a genus of marine fishes. Terpug inhabits the Bering Sea, the Aleutian, Kurile and Commandor Islands, the south-western and south-eastern coasts of Kamchatka. Distinguishing feature of this fish is a long dorsal fin, not divided into two parts. On both sides of the body there are four lateral lines, males have a greenish-gray body color with dark vertical stripes, females - brown and gray. The length of a terpug reaches up to 1 meter, weighs up to 18 kilograms. There are about 13 species of Terpug. They live from 2 to 10 years. Mass spawning occurs in July. For taste and fat content in meat terpug provides high-quality product for cooking.

Flatfish

Many important food fish are in this order, including the flounders, soles, turbot, plaice, and halibut. There are more than 400 species of this order. Some flatfish can camouflage themselves on the ocean floor.

The most obvious characteristic of the flatfish is their asymmetry, with both eyes lying on the same side of the head in the adult fish. In some families, the eyes are always on the right side of the body, and in others, they are always on the left. The primitive spiny turbots include equal numbers of right and left sided individuals, and are generally less asymmetrical than the other familes. Other distinguishing features of the order are the presence of protrusible eyes, another adaptation to living on the seabed (benthos), and the extension of the dorsal fin onto the head.

The surface of the fish facing away from the sea floor is pigmented, often serving to camouflage the fish, but sometimes with striking coloured patterns. Some flatfish are also able to change their pigmentation to match the background, in a similar manner to a chameleon. The side of the body without the eyes, which faces the seabed, is usually colourless or very pale.

Flatfish range in size from Tarphops oligolepis, measuring about 4.5 centimetres in length, and weighing 2 grams, to the Atlantic halibut, at 2.5 metres and 316 kilograms.

Flatfish lay eggs that hatch into larvae resembling typical, symmetrical, fish. These are initially elongated, but quickly develop into a more rounded form. The length of the planktonic stage varies between different types of flatfish, but eventually they begin to metamorphose into the adult form. One of the eyes migrates across the top of the head and onto the other side of the body, leaving the fish blind on one side. The larva also loses its swim bladder and spines, and sinks to the bottom, laying its blind side on the underlying surface.

The asymmetric geometry of flatfish has been likened to the cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso, and is often perceived as being "imperfect", "grotesque", "strange", etc. It is likely that the asymmetry contributes to their survival by helping to disguise them on the ocean floor.