Massive Schools of Capelin Discovered: Insights on Their Survival and Predation Challenges

Capelin, or rather Mallotus villosusa small fish that lives in the waters of the North Atlantic and eats plankton and krill. IFL Science explains that these are important fish for the food chain, and their place in the ocean can be compared to anchovies in warmer water bodies.

Mallotus villosus they are exposed to predators as they look for places to spawn. They are the most endangered cod, which feed on capelin as they move to their spawning grounds.

An article published in the journal “Communications Biology” shows that scientists from MIT, using Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing sonar, saw a large school of capelin that stretched for dozens of kilometers. According to the estimates of Nicholas Makris from MIT, the school could consist of 23 million fish with a total weight of 414 tons.

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Capelins formed such a large group to be able to move at the same pace and have the common route they were on. Although digging behavior is known among many species of fish, it has never been seen before in capelin, we read on IFL Science. However, a large concentration of fish causes this A school of capelin is an easy target for predators. Scientists have calculated that around 10.5 million capelin were killed during observations using the above sonar.

– This is happening on a monstrous scale, we see a wave of capelin coming like a wave around a sports stadium, gathering to create protection, said Makris. According to the scientist, the same thing happens with predators. – They come together to attack each other – he said.

Although the scale of this event is quite large, it does not pose a threat to the capelin population. Importantly, rising global temperatures could make some capelin spawning grounds unsuitable, forcing small fish to concentrate in fewer places, and potentially increasing the risk of predator attacks higher.