Atlantic cod

Gadus morhua, commonly known as Atlantic Cod, is a well known foodfish. It grows to 6 1/2 feet in length and has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina along the western side of the Atlantic. It is also found along the northern Atlantic coasts in Europe.

This species was heavily overfished, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and Canada. The fishery has yet to recover, and may not due to a possibly stable change in the food web. Coloring is brown to green on the dorsal side, shading to silver ventrally. Its habitat ranges from the shoreline down to the continental shelf. Northwestern Atlantic populations spawn in the winter/spring in the Cape Cod region in a location called Georges Bank.

See also: Cod, Gadus