Scientific name:
Merlangius merlangus

Natural spread:
Europe

externally resembles the Wittling the cod; however, it lacks the beard-thread, the side-line doesn't take off from the light-sallow-greenish-brown upper side, the black stain in the flipper clearly is smaller. The Wittling doesn't get the dimensionses of other, economically important codfish-fish (codfish, cod, charcoal-burners), it gains lengths of 50-60 cm merely and becomes only approximately 7 years old. its spread-area extends from North-Norway over the Mediterranean to the black sea and stretches to the west of as far as to Iceland from. The main-catch-areas lie west from the British islands and in the North sea.

Way of life The Wittling is no swarm-fish, lives together, however, in relaxed associations, however. Only to the spawn-time, it is found in dense swarms. The shelf-areas of 60-150 m of depth are its habitat, where it itself in the courts waterproof over the seabed detains, prefers over sandy or muddy reason. it has a predatory way of life and lives from fishings as well as shrimps and swimming-crabs. The young-fish-little are in the free water and often look for protection between the nettle-threads of big jellyfishes.

The blue Wittling (Micromesistius poutassou) differs more strongly from the Wittling as one could assume after its name. As inhabitants of the free water, it lives in depths until 400 m. Recently, it seems to himself also in the northwest-like Atlantic to extends. Probably, it was avoided by the German open sea-fishery because of its low size (average length 30-40 cm) earlier. Today, the picture changed fundamentally: The blue Wittling living in big swarms, that is on the market as "sea-salmon", increasingly gains traditional catch-areas of the 200-nautical mile-economic-zones, numerous through the loss, through what the catches declined at codfish and red-perch considerably importance.