European anchovy
Encyclopedia
The European anchovy is a forage fish
somewhat related to the herring
. Anchovies
are placed in the family Engraulidae.
It is easily distinguished by its deeply-cleft mouth, the angle of the gape being behind the eyes. The pointed snout extends beyond the lower jaw. The fish resembles a sprat in having a forked tail and a single dorsal fin, but the body is round and slender. The maximum length is 8 1/8 in (205 mm).
and formerly also the Black
and Azov
seas (see below). They are regularly caught on the coasts of Spain
, France
, Italy
, Russia
, Ukraine
, Bulgaria
, Croatia
, Romania
, Greece
, Georgia
, and Turkey
. The range of the species also extends along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the south of Norway
. In winter it is common off Devon and Cornwall (United Kingdom
), but has not hitherto been caught in such numbers as to be of commercial importance.
in summer when they entered the Wadden Sea
and Zuider Zee
. After the closing of the Zuider Zee
they were still found in the Wadden Sea until the 1960s. They were also caught in the estuary of the Scheldt
.
There is reason to believe the anchovies at the western end of the English Channel in November and December migrate from the Zuider Zee
and Scheldt in autumn, returning there the following spring. They were believed an isolated stock, for none come from the south in summer to occupy the English Channel
, though the species exists on the coast of Portugal
. The explanation appears to be that in summer, the shallow and landlocked waters of the Zuider Zee and the sea off the Dutch coast raise higher in temperature than the sea off the British coasts, so anchovies can spawn and maintain their numbers in these waters.
Dutch naturalist on the shores of the Zuider Zee first described their reproduction and development. Spawning takes place in June and July. The eggs are buoyant and transparent like most fish eggs, but are unusual in being sausage-shaped, instead of globular. They resemble sprat and pilchard eggs in having a segmented yolk and no oil globule.
The larva hatch two or three days after fertilization, and are minute and transparent. In August young specimens, 1½ to 3½ in (40 to 90 mm), in length have been taken in the Zuider Zee, and these must derive from the previous summer's spawning.
There is no evidence to decide the question whether all the young anchovies as well as the adults leave the Zuider Zee in autumn, but, considering the winter temperature there, it is probable that they do. The eggs have also been obtained from the Bay of Naples, and near Marseilles, also off the coast of Holland, and once at least off the coast of Lancashire.
The occurrence of anchovies in the English Channel has been carefully studied at the laboratory of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. They were most abundant in 1889 and 1890. In the former year considerable numbers were taken off Dover in drift nets of small mesh used for the capture of sprats. In the following December large numbers were taken together with sprats at Torquay. In November 1890 a thousand of the fish were obtained in two days from the pilchard boats fishing near Plymouth; these were caught near the Eddystone.
, hamsa or hamsia in Georgian
, hamsi in Turkish
, hapsi in Pontic dialect of Turkish, hapsia in Pontic Greek, Hapchia in Laz
хамсия (hamsiya) in Bulgarian
, and хамса (hamsa) in Russian
and Ukrainian
. Black Sea adult anchovies can reach around 12-15 cm. In the summer, hamsi migrates north to shallow waters and to deep in the winter. During migration the fish moves in huge schools
, where gulls and dolphin
s actively chase them. A variety of hamsi feeds and breeds during summer in the Azov sea, and moves to the Black Sea for the winter, passing through the Strait of Kerch
.
The population was severely depleted in the 1980s by the invasive
comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi
, which eats the eggs and young, but has since stabilized again, albeit at a much lower level.
Hamsi makes up a considerable part of fishing
and fish processing
industries, either can
ned or frozen. In Turkey, it is the staple food of the local Black sea cuisine . Hamsi is widely used from pan dishes to baked goods, even as a dessert. In Bulgaria hamsiya is traditionally fried and served in cheap fast-food restaurants along the shore, typically with beer
. Since 1990s the dominant position of fried hamsiya is reduced but it's still quite popular.
Forage fish
Forage fish, also called prey fish or bait fish, are small fish which are preyed on by larger predators for food. Predators include other larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Typical ocean forage fish feed near the base of the food chain on plankton, often by filter feeding...
somewhat related to the herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
. Anchovies
Anchovy
Anchovies are a family of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish.-Description:...
are placed in the family Engraulidae.
It is easily distinguished by its deeply-cleft mouth, the angle of the gape being behind the eyes. The pointed snout extends beyond the lower jaw. The fish resembles a sprat in having a forked tail and a single dorsal fin, but the body is round and slender. The maximum length is 8 1/8 in (205 mm).
Distribution
European anchovies are abundant in the MediterraneanMediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
and formerly also the Black
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
and Azov
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
seas (see below). They are regularly caught on the coasts of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. The range of the species also extends along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the south of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. In winter it is common off Devon and Cornwall (United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
), but has not hitherto been caught in such numbers as to be of commercial importance.
Zuider Zee and English Channel
Formerly they were caught in large numbers off the coast of the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in summer when they entered the Wadden Sea
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of Frisian Islands, forming a shallow body of water with tidal flats and wetlands. It is rich in biological diversity...
and Zuider Zee
Zuider Zee
The Zuiderzee was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres and a coastline of about 300 km . It covered...
. After the closing of the Zuider Zee
Zuider Zee
The Zuiderzee was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres and a coastline of about 300 km . It covered...
they were still found in the Wadden Sea until the 1960s. They were also caught in the estuary of the Scheldt
Scheldt
The Scheldt is a 350 km long river in northern France, western Belgium and the southwestern part of the Netherlands...
.
There is reason to believe the anchovies at the western end of the English Channel in November and December migrate from the Zuider Zee
Zuider Zee
The Zuiderzee was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres and a coastline of about 300 km . It covered...
and Scheldt in autumn, returning there the following spring. They were believed an isolated stock, for none come from the south in summer to occupy the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, though the species exists on the coast of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. The explanation appears to be that in summer, the shallow and landlocked waters of the Zuider Zee and the sea off the Dutch coast raise higher in temperature than the sea off the British coasts, so anchovies can spawn and maintain their numbers in these waters.
Dutch naturalist on the shores of the Zuider Zee first described their reproduction and development. Spawning takes place in June and July. The eggs are buoyant and transparent like most fish eggs, but are unusual in being sausage-shaped, instead of globular. They resemble sprat and pilchard eggs in having a segmented yolk and no oil globule.
The larva hatch two or three days after fertilization, and are minute and transparent. In August young specimens, 1½ to 3½ in (40 to 90 mm), in length have been taken in the Zuider Zee, and these must derive from the previous summer's spawning.
There is no evidence to decide the question whether all the young anchovies as well as the adults leave the Zuider Zee in autumn, but, considering the winter temperature there, it is probable that they do. The eggs have also been obtained from the Bay of Naples, and near Marseilles, also off the coast of Holland, and once at least off the coast of Lancashire.
The occurrence of anchovies in the English Channel has been carefully studied at the laboratory of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. They were most abundant in 1889 and 1890. In the former year considerable numbers were taken off Dover in drift nets of small mesh used for the capture of sprats. In the following December large numbers were taken together with sprats at Torquay. In November 1890 a thousand of the fish were obtained in two days from the pilchard boats fishing near Plymouth; these were caught near the Eddystone.
Black Sea and Azov Sea
In areas around the Black Sea, the European anchovy is called hamsie in RomanianRomanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, hamsa or hamsia in Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, hamsi in Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, hapsi in Pontic dialect of Turkish, hapsia in Pontic Greek, Hapchia in Laz
Laz language
The Laz language is a South Caucasian language spoken by the Laz people on the Southeast shore of the Black Sea...
хамсия (hamsiya) in Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, and хамса (hamsa) in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. Black Sea adult anchovies can reach around 12-15 cm. In the summer, hamsi migrates north to shallow waters and to deep in the winter. During migration the fish moves in huge schools
Shoaling and schooling
In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are said to be shoaling , and if, in addition, the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are said to be schooling . In common usage, the terms are sometimes used rather loosely...
, where gulls and dolphin
Bottlenose Dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins, the genus Tursiops, are the most common and well-known members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Recent molecular studies show the genus contains two species, the common bottlenose dolphin and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin , instead of one...
s actively chase them. A variety of hamsi feeds and breeds during summer in the Azov sea, and moves to the Black Sea for the winter, passing through the Strait of Kerch
Strait of Kerch
The Kerch Strait connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula in the west from the Taman Peninsula in the east. The strait is to wide and up to deep....
.
The population was severely depleted in the 1980s by the invasive
Invasive species
"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....
comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi
Mnemiopsis leidyi
The warty comb jelly or sea walnut is a species of tentaculate ctenophore , originally native to the western Atlantic coastal waters. Three species have been named in the genus Mnemiopsis, but they are now believed to be different ecological forms of a single species M...
, which eats the eggs and young, but has since stabilized again, albeit at a much lower level.
Hamsi makes up a considerable part of fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
and fish processing
Fish processing
The term fish processing refers to the processes associated with fish and fish products between the time fish are caught or harvested, and the time the final product is delivered to the customer...
industries, either can
Tin can
A tin can, tin , steel can, or a can, is a sealed container for the distribution or storage of goods, composed of thin metal. Many cans require opening by cutting the "end" open; others have removable covers. Cans hold diverse contents: foods, beverages, oil, chemicals, etc."Tin" cans are made...
ned or frozen. In Turkey, it is the staple food of the local Black sea cuisine . Hamsi is widely used from pan dishes to baked goods, even as a dessert. In Bulgaria hamsiya is traditionally fried and served in cheap fast-food restaurants along the shore, typically with beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
. Since 1990s the dominant position of fried hamsiya is reduced but it's still quite popular.