Merluccid hakes facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Merluccid hakes |
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| Silver hake, Merluccius bilinearis | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Gadiformes |
| Family: | Merlucciidae T. N. Gill, 1884 |
| Genera | |
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Lyconodes |
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The Merlucciidae, often called merluccid hakes, are a family of fish that look a bit like cod. Most fish known as "hake" belong to this family.
Contents
Where Hakes Live
These fish live in cold parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. You can usually find them deeper than 50 meters (about 164 feet). They prefer areas that are subtropical, temperate, or close to the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
What Hakes Look Like and Eat
The most well-known types of hakes are from the groups Macruronus and Merluccius. These fish are predators, meaning they hunt other animals for food. They can grow up to 1.55 meters (about 5 feet) long. However, most hakes only reach about half that size.
Hakes live near the edge of the continental shelf and the upper continental slope. This is where the land under the sea starts to drop off. They like to eat smaller fish, such as lanternfishes.
Important Hake Species
Several types of hakes are very important for fishing. For example, the blue grenadier (Macruronus novaezelandiae) is caught in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Another important one is the North Pacific hake (Merluccius productus), which is fished off the western coast of North America. These fish are popular for food around the world.
How Scientists Group Hakes
Scientists sometimes group the Merlucciidae family in different ways. Some experts divide them into two or three smaller groups, called subfamilies. These are the Merluccinae, Macruroninae, and Steindachneriinae.
Other scientists think that the Macruroninae and Steindachneriinae should be their own separate families. If this idea is followed, the different groups of hakes would be arranged like this:
- Steindachneriidae
- Steindachneria
- Macruronidae
- Lyconodes
- Lyconus
- Macruronus
- Merlucciidae ss (meaning "in the strict sense")
- Merluccius
This shows that even scientists sometimes have different ideas about how to best organize living things!
See also
In Spanish: Merlucciidae para niños
