Profile: Redfish

The red coloration of the fish, which also gave them their name, is striking. They are bright red with some darker marbling on the back and a light pink on the belly. The mouth cavities are bright red in color. Another characteristic is the hard, firmly attached scales with slightly pointed spines on the rear edge, which make the fish very rough to the touch.
Redfish meat is firm, reddish-white in appearance and extremely tasty. It contains hardly any fat.
Redfish live in shoals mainly in the North Atlantic and prefer water temperatures between 3 and 8 degrees Celsius and depths of up to 1,000 meters. The most important habitats are the European North Sea from Spitsbergen to Iceland, Greenland to the Faroe Islands and southern zones near Scotland, western Ireland, in the Skagerrak and off the Swedish west coast.
Redfish belong to the bony fish family and are classified as armored cheeks. A special biological feature of these fish is that the females give birth to live young. The eggs mature in the womb of the mother and up to 150,000 larvae are born between March and June. Redfish feed on shrimps, crabs and small fish such as herring, capelin and young cod. They grow unusually slowly, but can live up to 50 years. At this age, redfish measure around one meter and weigh around 12 kg.