GET IN TUNA WITH BEAST Bluefin marvel
1 Bluefin are not a specific fish, rather a blanket term for four types – the longtail tuna, the Southern tuna, the Atlantic tuna and the Pacific tuna.
2 The name tuna came from the Spanish word atún and was adopted in the early 1900s as a term for all tunas, including the bluefin, across the Englishspeaking world.
3 Starting off the size of an eyelash, the largest bluefins have been found to grow to 17ft and weigh 100st. Scientists believe they could live up to 50 years.
4 As one of the ocean’s strongest and fastest predators, they need to be constantly moving so that sharks and toothed whales – their only predators – don’t catch them. Constant water flow over their gills allows them to take in oxygen, as does keeping their mouths open as they swim.
5 The North Atlantic Ocean is their habitat, with the western population spawning in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern across the Mediterranean Sea.
6 It takes between three to five years for them to become sexually mature, with males and females releasing millions of eggs and sperm into the water at the same time to increase their chance of survival. Eggs hatch only two days after fertilisation.
7 With strong core muscles and a torpedo-shaped body to reduce water resistance, bluefin can reach speeds of up to 40mph thanks to their short pectoral fins and dark red dorsal fin.
8 Giving them the ability to hunt in cold water faster, bluefin have a blood vessel structure called a countercurrent exchanger, which helps them reach a body temperature higher than the water around them.
9 Bluefin is a lucrative catch due to its falling numbers. But that has also caused it to be highly vulnerable to extinction.
10 There are 1.6million Pacific bluefin with 145,000 of those reproducing adults.
11 Many try to breed the fish in controlled environments, which has reduced the wild numbers available to populate the ocean. If it continues, it could upset the balance of the food chain and affect the ocean’s ecosystem.
12 Entourage actor Adrian Grenier is among stars who have joined activism protests to protect bluefin tuna.
13 The biggest-known battle between fishermen and a bluefin is thought to have taken place in 1934 where six men took turns fighting a 57st beast for 62 hours.
14 Fish with red flesh used to be snubbed in Japanese culture but that changed in the 1930s and now bluefin is a particular delicacy in the country, hugely popular served as sushi and sashimi and sometimes known as toro.
15 In 2019 a single fish was bought for £2.5m at auction in Tokyo. It ended up as sushi.