The Icelandic glacier lantern fish

Have you ever wondered about all the kinds of fish are out there in the deep oceans? Have you ever heard of the glacier lantern fish?

In July, we introduced you to Charlotte Matthews, a marine biologist with a passion for the mesopelagic zone of the ocean. Since then, Charlotte has not only moved from Iceland to Canada to start her PhD at Memorial University, but she has also recently published a paper based on her Master‘s thesis. In her paper, she explored the biology of the glacier lantern fish in Icelandic waters. She used fish samples that were collected during a larger ecosystem survey. She measured each fish and took out the otoliths.

Fun fact: Otoliths are ear bones of the fish. You can count the rings on the otoliths to measure the age of a fish.

But what did she find?

With her study, Charlotte shows that the glacier lantern fish has different body conditions and age structures in different parts of the ocean in the south and west of Iceland. She would like to see this project become bigger, with more studies looking at the glacier lantern fish. Charlotte thinks it would be great to look at for example how the characteristics of this fish are at different times of the year and how this species reproduces and grows.

Are you interested in Icelandic fish, their biology and how to measure their age, then Charlotte’s paper is for you! 🙂