FishSpotterby
Back to the feed

Fish

Poor cod

Trisopterus minutus

Trisopterus minutus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Gadidae WoRMS 126446

Reference photos

Tap a photo to enlarge.

A slender, coppery member of the cod family with a barbel under the chin and a dark blotch at the base of the pectoral fin, commonly about 20 cm long. Gregarious, living in small schools over sand and mud, and small fish are often seen around wrecks and in cracks and crevices in rock.

Depth

1-440 m, usually 15-200 m; larger fish down to 300 m

Size

Commonly about 20 cm total length, with reported maxima of 26 to 40 cm

Habitat

Benthopelagic over muddy or sandy bottoms, mostly 15 to 200 m; small fish are often seen in and around wrecks and in cracks in rocky areas

Behaviour

Gregarious, living in small schools; a demersal predator and scavenger that breeds in spring in deep water

Diet

I eat

  • Bottom-living crustaceans, including shrimps and prawns, crabs and hermit crabs, amphipods and mysids
  • Small fish, including sandeels, gobies and dragonets
  • Polychaete worms taken off the seabed

Eats me

  • Larger predatory fish such as cod, whiting, hake and turbot
  • Grey and harbour seals, which commonly take poor cod in Scottish waters
  • Conger eel and anglerfish

Where you'd find it

Found all around Britain and Ireland, so you have a chance of seeing it anywhere on the coast.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

Name Poor cod in a clip to add it to your collection.

Spot it in the feed