Sailfish

Fact File:

Common Name(s):
Sailfish or Atlantic Sailfish

Scientific Name:
Istiophorus albicans (Latreille, 1804)

Usual Size:
To 3.15m

UK Record Weights from rod/line:

Shore:

Boat:

MAFF Minimum Size: Shore: Boat:
Identification:
Colour: body back dark blue and along the flanks light blue with brown and the underside is white. Also along the sides are about 20 longitudinal stripes. The first dorsal fin is very large and high and usually higher than body depth and mid body of the fish

Breeding:
Egg dispersal and a female may disperse

up to 4.8 million eggs (in 3 batches) over the

breeding season.

Habitat:
An oceanic species with a water temperature

requirement of 21/28ºC and found above the

thermocline, although it does have a tendency

to migrate into near shore waters and is

usually found in the upper layers of the water

column

Food:
Tunas and squids

Range:
In the Eastern Atlantic from the northern coast

of France down to the cape of Good Hope and

in the Mediterranean

Additional Notes:
One specimen of this species was found

washed up in the Yealm Estuary in Devon in

1928. An extremely rare vagrant to UK waters.

FAO Species Catalogue - Vol V - Billfishes of The World - Nakamura

Fishes of the North-Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean - Whitehead, Bauchot, Hureau, Nielsen, Tortonese

Key to the Fishes of Northern Europe - Wheeler

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