European anchovy
| European anchovy | ||||||||||||
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European anchovy ( Engraulis encrasicolus ) |
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| Engraulis encrasicolus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The European anchovy ( Engraulis encrasicolus ) is a small fish from the order of the herring-like fish . It occurs in the eastern Atlantic from Scotland to Angola , including the North Sea , Skagerrak and Kattegat , in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea . Occurrences have also been reported near St. Helena and Estonia as well as in the Indian Ocean near Mauritius , the Seychelles and in the upwelling zone off the coast of Somalia . Scattered specimens were also found in the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Suez . The fish can tolerate a wide range of salt contents from 0.5 to 4.1 percent.
Genus and species names come from ancient Greek: engraulis ( Greek ἐγγραυλίς ) and encrasicolus (Latinized from enkrasicholos ἐγκρασίχολος , incorrectly spelled by Linnaeus at the beginning) are both names for the anchovy, the latter means roughly 'with reference to bile' Taste.
features
European anchovies are slim and elongated. They can be up to 20 centimeters long, but rarely reach a length of more than 16 centimeters. In the southern part of the distribution area they remain smaller. The population in the Sea of Azov is only ten centimeters long. The caudal fin is clearly notched .
Fin formula : dorsal 16–18, anal 13–15
Way of life
The European anchovy forms large schools that are mainly in shallow water and strain the water for zooplankton , mainly copepods , and phytoplankton . When the plankton density is high, they open their large mouths wide and drive through the water with their open gill trap. Otherwise they snap open the plankters one by one.
The schools migrate north in summer and return to more southerly waters in winter. In the North Sea and the English Channel the spawning season is from June to August, in the Mediterranean from April to September. Lagoons and estuaries are often sought out for spawning. The females lay 13,000 to 20,000 oval eggs that float in the top 50 meters of the water column. The fish larvae hatch after 24 to 65 hours.
Economical meaning
The European anchovy is of great importance for fishing . They are caught with purse seine , trawls and lantern fishing. The meat of the small, fat fish tastes bitter and is therefore usually salted and offered as a piquant and spicy cooking ingredient ( anchovies ). Salting not only preserves the edible fish , it also starts a fermentation process that “cooks” them. The quality and taste improve during the storage time, often more than two years. Pickled anchovies are mainly traded as fillets in coarse salt or in vegetable oil. Their taste becomes milder after soaking them in milk or lukewarm water for some time. Pureed and mixed with oil and spices, they are offered as anchovy paste in tubes.
The strong taste that people generally associate with anchovies is due to the cooking process. Fresh anchovies from the Mediterranean are pickled in oil, baked whole or grilled and have a much milder taste. in Italy, anchovies are known as alici. The anchovies from Barcola (in the local dialect: "Sardoni barcolani") are particularly popular . These light, fleshy fish, which can only be found at Scirocco in the Gulf of Trieste , fetch the highest prices.
literature
- Bent J. Muus, Jørgen G. Nielsen: The marine fish of Europe in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Atlantic. Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07804-3 .
Web links
- European anchovy on Fishbase.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georges Desrues "A Long Night by the Sea", In: Triest - Servus Magazin (2020), p. 73.