Atlantic wolffish

Anarhichas lupus

A large cold-water bottom fish of the North Atlantic, using powerful jaws to crush sea urchins, crabs, and mollusks.

Key facts

Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus) is a carnivore animal classified as Fish · Perciformes · Anarhichadidae.
Primary habitats are open ocean · coast, with a range across Atlantic Ocean · Arctic Ocean · Nearctic · Palearctic.
Activity is cathemeral, sociality is solitary, and conservation status is VU (Vulnerable).
A large cold-water bottom fish of the North Atlantic, using powerful jaws to crush sea urchins, crabs, and mollusks.
Lives on rocky, gravelly, and cold shelf bottoms from eastern Canada and Greenland to Iceland and northern Europe.

Habitat range map

Native rangeOccasional / Transient

Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)

Lives on rocky, gravelly, and cold shelf bottoms from eastern Canada and Greenland to Iceland and northern Europe.

The body is long and heavy, gray-blue to brown with dark bars. The head is large, with strong front teeth and molar-like crushing teeth.

Usually solitary, it stays near bottom shelters rather than swimming continuously in open water. Pair behavior occurs around spawning.

It eats sea urchins, crabs, clams, snails, and sea stars, crushing hard shells and influencing benthic communities.

Large egg masses are laid on the seabed, and males guard them. Larvae drift after hatching.

Atlantic wolffish is vulnerable to bottom trawling and habitat disturbance. Its crushing teeth wear down and are replaced regularly.