| Whiting | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Gadiformes |
| Family: | Gadidae |
| Genus: | Merlangius |
| Species: | M. merlangus |
| Binomial name | |
| Merlangius merlangus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
|
Merlangius merlangus, commonly known as whiting (or English whiting in the USA) is an important food fish in the eastern North Atlantic, northern Mediterranean, western Baltic, and Black Sea. In English speaking countries outside the whiting's natural range, the name has been applied to various other species of fish.
Until the later 20th century, whiting was a cheap fish, regarded as food for the poor or for pets, but the general decline in fish stocks means it is now more highly valued. The other fish that have been given the name whiting are mostly also food fish.
Cod and related species are plagued by parasites. For example, the cod worm, Lernaeocera branchialis, starts life as a copepod, a small, free-swimming crustacean larva. The first hosts used by cod worms are flatfish or lumpsuckers, which they capture with grasping hooks at the front of their body. They penetrate the lumpsucker with a thin filament which they use to suck its blood. The nourished cod worms then mate on the lumpsucker.[1][2]
The female worm, with her now fertilized eggs, then finds a cod, or a cod-like fish such as a haddock or whiting. There, the worm clings to the gills while it metamorphoses into a plump, sinusoidal, wormlike body, with a coiled mass of egg strings at the rear. The front part of the worm's body penetrates the body of the cod until it enters the rear bulb of the host's heart. There, firmly rooted in the cod's circulatory system, the front part of the parasite develops like the branches of a tree, reaching into the main artery. In this way, the worm extracts nutrients from the cod's blood, remaining safely tucked beneath the cod's gill cover until it releases a new generation of offspring into the water.[1][2]