THE BARENTS SEA 



161 



The diet of the different main breeds of fish varies from purely benthos- 

 feeding (sea dab, haddock) to typical plankton eaters (herring, bass) (Fig. 63). 

 Such fish as long rough dab and ray have a mixed diet, feeding almost equally 

 on pelagic and bottom organisms. 



Fig. 63. Feeding habits of the chief commercial fish of the 



Barents Sea in order : haddock, Anarhichas, sand dab, ray, 



cod, sea bass (Zenkevitch, 1931). 



The feeding of cod. The diet of cod has been investigated most fully. Exhaustive 

 information is given in the extensive study by V. Zatzepin and N. Petrova 

 (1939). The cod's diet consists basically of small pelagic fish — herring, caplin, 

 young cod, haddock and finally, in the northern and western parts of the Sea, 

 polar pollack {Boreogadus saida). Fish forms 60 per cent of the diet of the cod. 

 Next come other pelagic organisms (more than 20 per cent), mainly the crus- 

 taceans: Euphausiacea and Hyperiidae (14 per cent), and prawns: Pandalus 

 borealis, Sabinea septemcarinata (4-4 per cent), and other members of the 

 Crangonidae and Hippolytidae families. Sometimes, especially in the west of 

 the Sea, ctenophores, jellyfish, appendicularians and other plankton organisms 

 form a considerable admixture to this diet (up to 2 per cent). In the eastern 



