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Yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Scombridae
Genus: Thunnus
South, 1845

See text

Tuna, sometimes called tunafish, are several species (kinds) of fish. They are in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus.

Tuna are fast swimmers. People have seen tuna swim at up to 77 km/h. Several species of tuna are warm-blooded. Most species of fish have white flesh. The flesh of the tuna is different. It is pink to dark red. This is because tuna muscle tissue contains greater quantities of myoglobin. Myoglobin is a molecule that binds oxygen. Some of the larger tuna species such as the Northern bluefin tuna can raise their blood temperature above the water temperature with muscular activity. This enables them to live in cooler waters and survive a wider range of circumstances.

Tuna as a commercial fish[change | change source]

Tuna is an important commercial fish. Some varieties of tuna, such as the bluefin and bigeye tuna are threatened by overfishing, dramatically affecting tuna populations in the Atlantic and northwestern Pacific Oceans. Other populations seem to support fairly healthy fisheries (for example, the central and western Pacific skipjack tuna), but there is mounting evidence that overfishing threatens tuna fisheries world-wide.

Some fishermen in Australia now grow Southern bluefin tuna in fish farms. Fish farms are areas of water with nets around them, where farmers raise (keep and grow animals) fish. Some tuna farms are circular nets forty meters in diameter and twenty meters deep. The fishermen catch the tuna at sea, and then they keep the tuna in these farms. The tuna grow and get fatter for from three to six months. There are also tuna farms in the Mediterranean, North America, and Japan that raise Northern bluefin tuna. Some environmental groups say that tuna farms use too much fish as food for the tuna, and that the farms pollute the water (make the water dirty).

The Trouble with Tuna[change | change source]

Tuna are high up in the food chain. They eat animals that ate animals. Their diet leads to the accumulation of heavy metals in their flesh. Mercury levels can be relatively high in some of the larger species of tuna such as bluefin and albacore. As a result, in March 2004 the United States FDA issued guidelines recommending pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children to limit their intake of tuna and other types of predatory fish [1]. However, most canned light tuna is skipjack tuna and is very low in mercury.

Sport fishermen like to catch tuna using rods and hooks.

Species[change | change source]

There are eight species:

Related pages[change | change source]


References[change | change source]

  • "Thunnus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. January 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.

Other websites[change | change source]