Atlantic roughy: these fish live 200 years! (9 photos)

Live quietly, eat a lot, don’t twitch without unnecessary reason - this is the credo this fish adheres to. To follow him, Bighead went away from the surface turmoil and sunlight - to the bottom of the sea.





After descending a kilometer deep, all that can bother you is high pressure. But it is still lower than social pressure.



- I saw how stars lit up and died, I saw how civilizations were born... - How old are you? - 31.

There, in the darkness, bigheads express themselves without embarrassment. No one will judge your bright red coloring if no one can see it.





First, men say that they are not depressed, and then they sit like that for more than 100 years.

And no one will criticize your procrastination, even if you are already an adult 7-kilogram fish 80 centimeters long.



- Dad, I don’t want to go for a walk! - Go outside, at least get some fresh air!

Sedentary levitation just above the bottom surface occupies exactly half of the lines on the bighead’s daily to-do list. In such deep-sea meditation, fish are not completely alone, but in the company of like-minded people. True, instead of huddling together, they, like true introverts, keep their distance - there are approximately 2-3 individuals per 1 m².



Hello, we are lost, can you tell me where audience 301 is?

Having ticked this box, the animals go to complete the second half of the list. Yes, you heard that right, they are moving for a snack. In the dark sea it can be difficult to do this, so the bighead opens the display wider to cope with any portion. Fortunately, hunting is not difficult when your prey shines in the dark. Glowing anchovies and squids, without knowing it, help the bighead catch itself. The largemouth does not aim to become an alpha predator. There are plenty of comrades at the bottom with slightly larger mouths. But all the monsters of the depths could not shake the big head until the beast with the greatest appetite appeared in the area. It does not have a mouth, but it does have a trawler net.



During sleep, the fish loses its bright red color.

It turned out that the bigheads were hiding for a reason: their meat is soft and tasty. Since the 70s, commercial fishing has been carried out for fish. And then the animal began to present surprises. First it turned out that there are practically no Omega-3 bigheads, and then it turned out that the animal is literally poisonous. Even if not consciously. It's all about incredible longevity - over two centuries of life, bigheads accumulate a decent amount of mercury in their carcass. The concentration, of course, is not lethal, but often eating this fish becomes harmful.



It’s immediately clear that mother didn’t scare these guys with a mercury thermometer...

As a result, the number of fish has decreased, but is still stable. Thanks to the persistence of various organizations, they began to catch her within limits and quotas. But the bigheads are still having trouble recovering. When you live for hundreds of years, you increasingly want to live for yourself, and not think about restoring the population.



We are not helpful and we are poisonous. What else can we do so that you don’t catch us?!

Pisces come to children's ideas at about the same time as people - when they are well into their twenties. But even here the bigheads are not trying too hard. While other fish throw out hundreds of thousands of eggs, these comrades are limited to 90 thousand offspring. It only seems like there are a lot of them, but the younger generation will have to swim to a depth of 200 meters and live 20-40 years in the open ocean. And this is just to make up for their kids. And only a few will be able to reach 200 years!



“Listen here, you’ll talk like that when you grow to be a hundred, but now you have to listen to me!” “Then I’ll swim to the surface!”