The Antarctic Silverfish, Pleuragramma antarcticum is a member of the suborder Notothenioidei

Notothenioidei

The Antarctic icefish belong to the perciform suborder Notothenioidei and are the largely endemic, dominant fish taxa in the cold continental shelf waters surrounding Antarctica. At present, the suborder includes 8 families with 43 genera and 122 species...

 of the Perciform

Perciformes

The Perciformes, also called the Percomorphi or Acanthopteri, is one of the largest orders of vertebrates, containing about 40% of all bony fish. Perciformes means perch-like. They belong to the class of ray-finned fish and comprise over 7,000 species found in almost all aquatic environments...

 fishes.

Pleuragramma antarcticum is a keystone species

Keystone species

A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Such species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and...

 in the ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

 of the Southern Ocean

Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...

.

While widely distributed around the Antarctic, the species appears to have largely disappeared from the western side of the northern Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. It extends from a line between Cape Adams and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands....

 based on a 2010 research cruise funded by the National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 under the U.S. Antarctic Program.

Description

It usually grows to approximately 15 centimetres in length, with a maximum of 25 centimetres. When alive it is pink with a silver tint, but turns silver only after death. This Antarctic

Antarctic

The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

 marine fish is one of several in the region which produce antifreeze glycopeptides

Antifreeze protein

Antifreeze proteins or ice structuring proteins refer to a class of polypeptides produced by certain vertebrates, plants, fungi and bacteria that permit their survival in subzero environments. AFPs bind to small ice crystals to inhibit growth and recrystallization of ice that would otherwise be...

 as an adaptation against the extreme cold of Antarctic waters.

Ecology

Postlarvae in size 8–17 mm feeds on eggs on calanoids (Calanoida), sea snails Limacina

Limacina

Limacina is a genus of swimming predatory sea snails commonly known as sea butterflies in the family Limacinidae. This genus contains some of the world's most abundant gastropod species....

and tintinnid

Tintinnid

Tintinnids are ciliates of the choreotrich taxon Tintinnida, distinguished by vase-shaped shells called loricae, which are mostly protein but may incorporate minute pieces of minerals. Although appearing as early as the Ordovician period, tintinnids became abundant in the fossil record during the...

s (Tintinnida). Juveniles feeds on copepod

Copepod

Copepods are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Some species are planktonic , some are benthic , and some continental species may live in limno-terrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests,...

s (Copepoda), mostly on copepod Oncaea curvata.

Antarctic silverfish are an important prey species for high trophic animals like the Adelie penguin

Adelie Penguin

The Adélie Penguin, Pygoscelis adeliae, is a species of penguin common along the entire Antarctic coast. They are among the most southerly distributed of all seabirds, as are the Emperor Penguin, the South Polar Skua, the Wilson's Storm Petrel, the Snow Petrel, and the Antarctic Petrel...

 and the Weddell seal

Weddell Seal

The Weddell seal , is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. Weddell seals have the most southerly distribution of any mammal, with a habitat that extends as far south as McMurdo Sound...

.