Ace of spades

In a week from now we will be back to our condition as earthlings. It is amazing, as soon as we reach mid-survey the days fly past. But it is still early to congratulate ourselves. Although we have relatively few hauls left -25 at the time of writing-, most of them are very difficult and on top of that it seems that Saturday will be the day when one of the lows circling around us will finally catch up with us. But that is a problem for the future.

We got some weather last evening. From left David, Rubén, Juan and Javier

Yesterday we got our deep water haul but it was not easy with that sudden bad weather we got. Luckily everything went well and the Greenland halibut catch was not bad: 89 kg. Today we had to delay our first haul a bit and we have been working all morning in 25 knots of wind and a fair share of rolling, but we keep up the pace. We will be exhausted at the end of the day. It is amazing how much energy goes in something as simple as keeping upright. Definitely not much of a problem in dry land.

Cristina, Jorge, Lucía, Vanessa and Antonio sorting the deep water haul

This morning we caught this specimen of Anotopterus pharao at 1300 m. That is nothing for this species that has been found down to 5100 m. Our specimen is also small compared to the maximum length recorded, 96 cm. The size of our sample does not allow to see very well the main feature that gives this animal its English name, daggertooth. Looking for curiosities about this fish I have found an article by Welch et al (2011) in which the authors suggest that it may be a significant cause of mortality among one of the species of Pacific salmon judging by the wounds salmon often present when caught. It seems as well that salmon does not go down quietly, because it was precisely a fragment of daggertooth jaw found in a salmon what finally allowed scientists to identify the attacker. Another older article by Welch & Pankhurst (2001) explains the daggertooth’s technique for feeding. It seems that they hide when waiting for victims, detected by sight. If the prey is smaller they slash the backbone, and eat them starting at the head. If the prey is bigger, they content themselves tearing off a strip of flesh. Quite gross, I say.

Anotopterus pharao or daggertooth. Just keep away from it.

And this will be it for today because now I must return to our catch figures.