Cusk (Brosme brosme) is a saltwater species recorded in the United States. It is found at depths of 18–1000 m.
Scientific name: Brosme brosme · Water: Saltwater
Size: up to 120 cm
The cusk is a demersal lotid found in small shoals on rough rock, gravel or pebble bottoms, and it generally keeps far from shore near the bottom, mostly between 150 and 450 m in the north-eastern Atlantic and between 18 and 550 m in the north-western Atlantic; it occurs at temperatures from 0 to 10 degrees Celsius, solitarily or in small groups. It is recorded from 18 to 1,000 m. It feeds on crustaceans and shellfish, on benthic fishes such as flatfishes and gurnards, and even on starfish, and it is preyed upon by seals. Its range is the north-west Atlantic, from New Jersey to the Strait of Belle Isle and the Grand Banks, rare at the southern tip of Greenland, and the north-east Atlantic off Iceland, in the northern North Sea and along the coast of Scandinavia to the Murmansk coast and Spitsbergen. Maximum length is about 120 cm total length, commonly about 50 cm, and it can live 20 years, maturing at about 53.3 cm. It is a highly commercial species and a gamefish, sold fresh, frozen as fillets or dried salted, with a low price category. Fishing vulnerability is high at 58 of 100 and resilience medium, and climate vulnerability is moderate at 44 of 100; no IUCN assessment is recorded for it.
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