FISH

Coddock? Sea sleuths work to uncover mystery of cod-haddock-like fish

Last summer, I wrote about a very interesting fish, showing up in the Gulf of Maine and promised an update. Well, here it is.

We nicknamed it a “coddock” due to its strange shape and coloration. It has the head of a haddock, the lateral line of a cod, the pectoral fin of a cod, and the meat flaked in large pieces like cod. The body shape is that of haddock, and all the other fins look like haddock fins, but it was missing the “thumbprint of God,” which is a large black spot just behind the operculum (gill plates) and above the pectoral (side fin). It also had spotted skin that looked more like a cod than the silvery skin of a haddock. This was abnormal and deserved some investigation. 

As of today, I still have not seen one of these strange fish in person. A few weeks ago, several of the party boats out of New Hampshire caught a few of them. 

Coddock? Sea sleuths work to uncover mystery of cod-haddock-like fish

In case you didn’t read last year’s article, here is a little background. 

This fish was first spotted by Linda Hunt, a fish dealer for Coastline Seafood, in the winter of 2023 in a box of fish she was sorting for sale. Linda sent a photo to me and asked if we had ever seen anything like it. It was caught with a school of haddock. While fishermen over the years noticed different coloration variations occasionally, this was different. It really doesn’t look like a cod or haddock. 

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