Arctic skate | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Chondrichthyes |
Order: | Rajiformes |
Family: | Rajidae |
Genus: | Amblyraja |
Species: | A. hyperborea |
Binomial name | |
Amblyraja hyperborea (Collett, 1879) |
The Arctic skate (Amblyraja hyperborea) is a species of fish in Rajidae family. It lives near the seabed between 140 and 2,500 metres in the Arctic ocean and waters around Canada and Northern and North-West Europe, in northern Pacific ocean and in waters surrounding Antarctica and New Zealand.
The Arctic skate is about a metre long and is gray-brown with large dark spots. Its underside is white with dark patterns. It has thorns in line from back to near the end of its tail. It is oviparous; its eggs are capsules with hard horns on each corner. It eats all sorts of small animals at the bottom of the sea.