Age and Growth of Blue Antimora Antimora rostrata (Moridae) in Southwestern Greenland Waters

A first attempt to evaluate the age and growth of blue hake Antimora rostrata (Moridae, Gadiformes, Teleostei) from the Lazarev and Weddell seas (Antarctic)

“…Male blue hake (up to the age of 14 years) off southwestern Greenland grow faster than females, but individuals of 15-16 years have a comparable growth rate both in length and weight between sexes. In subsequent years, females are noticeably longer and heavier than males of the same age (Orlov et al, 2018b). In our study area, female blue hakes were much larger than males and slightly older (26.8 vs. 24.9 years on the average), which is probably due to females growing larger than males and the life cycle of males being considerably shorter (Fossen & Bergstad, 2006;.…”

“…Given that in the process of longline fishing catches consist mainly of large-size fish, our samples of the blue hake were represented by a narrow size range, which can explain the low coefficient of reliable approximation of the equation of relationship between the length of the blue hake and the weight of its otoliths, as well as between the weight of otoliths and age. The example from the waters of southwestern Greenland can serve as a confirmation of this (Orlov et al, 2018b): the R 2 value for juvenile individuals with a length of 18-42 cm was equal to 0.58, while for females with a broader size range (21-70 cm) it was already 0.95.…”

“…The majority of authors, who studied the age of blue hake using otoliths (Fossen & Bergstad, 2006;Orlov et al, 2018b) note the challenges associated with the difficulties of interpretation of the results of age estimations, which was quite evident in our studies.…”

“…Thus, males dominated at depths of 500 m off the northwestern Atlantic, while the proportion of females increased with increasing depth (Kulka et al, 2003). In Greenland waters, depths deeper than 900 m were also dominated by females (Orlov et al, 2018b). In the waters of the North Atlantic coast of the United States at depths up to 1,500 m, the number of males was higher than females (Wenner & Musick, 1977).…”

“…Published information about the features of the life cycle of the species under consideration is extremely scarce and fragmentary (Collins, Priede, & Bagley, 1999;Gordon & Duncan, 1985;Iwamoto, 1975;Kulka et al, 2003;Novikov & Timokhin, 2009;Wenner & Musick, 1977). Despite its wide distribution in the world ocean and high occurrence in catches, the growth and age of blue hake have been studied only in the waters of Iceland (Magnusson, 1998(Magnusson, , 2001, the Ross Sea and New Zealand waters , as well as in several areas of the North Atlantic, including the waters of both coasts of Greenland and the Mid-Atlantic ridge (Fossen & Bergstad, 2006;Orlov, Vedishcheva, Trofimova, & Orlova, 2018b). However, no age validations were provided in those publications.…”