Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Older ref­er­ences of At­lantic her­ring in­di­cate that pop­u­la­tions may move be­tween dif­fer­ent coastal re­gions after a num­ber of years, dis­ap­pear­ing off the coast of Nor­way, while show­ing up on the shores of Ger­many (Buf­fon, 1793). This process can be ex­plained by cli­matic forc­ing of At­lantic her­ring mi­gra­tion oc­cur­ing on a decadal cycle (Al­heit and Hagen, 1997) as well as fluc­tu­a­tions in spawn­ing caused by switches in re­cruit­ment in be­tween north­ern and south­ern pop­u­la­tions in the North Sea (Corten, 1999). (Al­heit and Hagen, 1997; Buf­fon, 1793; Corten, 1999)

Clu­pea haren­gus are closely re­lated to the Pa­cific her­ring Clu­pea pal­lasii pal­lasii, which re­sides mainly in the north­ern Pa­cific Ocean. Re­cent ge­netic ev­i­dence in­di­cates that these two species di­verged roughly 1.3 mil­lion years ago (Do­man­ico, et al., 1996). (Do­man­ico, et al., 1996)

• Biogeographic Regions
• atlantic ocean
  • native

• Other Geographic Terms
• holarctic

Habi­tat

At­lantic her­ring Clu­pea haren­gus are found in the palagic zone of ma­rine wa­ters, as well as coastal zones of through­out their ge­o­graphic reach. (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; Buf­fon, 1793; "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: What is a her­ring?", 2004; Jones, 1795; Leeuwen­hoek, 1798)

(Note: the max­i­mum depth value given is based on a value of 50 fath­oms (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

• Habitat Regions
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• pelagic
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• intertidal or littoral

• Range depth

  36.576 to 0 m

  120.00 to 0.00 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Clu­pea haren­gus grow to about 17 inches (45.72 cm) and can weigh up to 1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004d). At­lantic her­ring stocks in the Baltic Sea have re­cently seen sig­nif­i­cant de­creases in weight-at-age in all age-classes with larger de­clines in north­ern pop­u­la­tions than south­ern pop­u­la­tions, and in younger age groups than in older groups (Car­di­nale and Ar­rhe­nius, 2000). The re­sult of this de­crease in weight-at-age could be in­dica­tive of a change in the av­er­age size of all Clu­pea haren­gus pop­u­la­tions, or it may only be a case of Baltic Sea pop­u­la­tions. (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; Car­di­nale and Ar­rhe­nius, 2000; "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: What is a her­ring?", 2004)

Clu­pea haren­gus are lat­er­ally com­pressed, with a mod­er­atly pointed nose, a large mouth at the tip of the snout, and a pro­ject­ing lower jaw. They have a "saw-toothed keel" belly and a deeply forked tail. The keel is only weakly saw­toothed as com­pared to other mem­bers of its fam­ily. The dor­sal fin is sit­u­ated roughly mid­way down the back, and the ab­dom­i­nal fins are lo­cated al­most di­rectly below it. There is no adi­pose fin. The scales are large and loosely at­tached. The key anatom­i­cal dif­fer­ence be­tween Clu­pea haren­gus and other mem­bers of the fam­ily is an oval patch of small teeth on the vomer bone at the cen­ter of the roof of the mouth (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

The body color is of a deep steel blue or green­ish blue, with sil­ver sides and belly. Ven­tral and anal fins are translu­cent white. The pec­torals are dark at their base and along the upper edge. The cau­dal and dor­sal fins are also dark(Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Range mass

  0.68 (high) kg

  1.50 (high) lb

• Range length

  45.72 (high) cm

  18.00 (high) in

De­vel­op­ment

Clu­pea haren­gus eggs are laid on rocky to sandy sub­strate, rarely on mud, from 3.7 m to 54.9 m on the North Amer­i­can side of the At­lantic. In Scan­di­navia, depths of 182.9 m have been recorded. Fer­til­iza­tion may take place in spring, sum­mer, or au­tumn, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal­ity and sub­type of At­lantic her­ring (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

In­cu­ba­tion lasts any­where from 10 to 40 days, de­pend­ing on local water tem­per­a­tures. Colder tem­per­a­tures (roughly 3.3 deg C) in­di­cate a longer in­cub­tion time. In­cu­ba­tion can take place in water tem­per­a­tures of up to 15 deg C. Tem­per­a­ture ranges above and below these lim­its pro­duced no vi­able hatch­ings (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

At the time of hatch­ing, Clu­pea haren­gus are about 6 mm long. Their small yolk sack is usu­ally com­pletely ab­sorbed by the time they reach 10 mm in length. At 15 to 17 mm, the dor­sal fin forms. The anal fin forms when At­lantic her­ring reach about 30 mm. Ven­tral fins be­come vis­i­ble at 30 to 35 mm. The tail be­comes well-forked at around this length as well. Only when At­lantic her­ring reach 40 mm do they start to fully re­sem­ble ma­ture her­ring (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

At roughly 2 years of age, Clu­pea harenga are about 19 to 20.5 cm in length, and start to ac­cu­mu­late large amounts of fat in the body tis­sue and vis­cera dur­ing warm months. This fat is lost in the win­ter and at the ap­proach of sex­ual ma­tu­rity (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

Re­pro­duc­tion

At­lantic her­ring ag­gre­gate into mas­sive schools in the late sum­mer and early fall. In the west­ern At­lantic, they move into coastal wa­ters at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions in the Gulf of Maine and off­shore banks of Nova Sco­tia to spawn. Spawn­ing times vary for dif­fer­ent pop­u­la­tions of At­lantic her­ring. ("Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Ecol­ogy", 2004)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Clu­pea haren­gus uses ex­ter­nal fer­til­iza­tion of eggs. As fe­male her­ring re­lease eggs, male her­ring re­lease clouds of milt si­mul­ta­ne­ously. Her­ring are fat prior to spawn­ing, after months of eat­ing plank­ton blooms. ("Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Ecol­ogy", 2004)

Ma­ture eggs make up a large por­tion (20%+) of the fe­male's body weight. The fe­cun­dity of her­ring fe­males is typ­i­cally in the range of 20,000-50,000 eggs per fe­male, al­though a large fe­male her­ring can lay as many as 200,000 eggs. Her­ring are iteroparous and gen­er­ally live to spawn re­peat­edly for sev­eral years. After spawn­ing, their weight de­clines with the loss of ga­metes and as­so­ci­ated fat con­tent. ("Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Ecol­ogy", 2004)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • external
• broadcast (group) spawning
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Atlantic herring usually spawn after reaching 25.5cm.

• Breeding season

  Atlantic herring may spawn in spring, summer, or autmn, depending on local conditions and the subspecies of herring.

• Range number of offspring

  200000 (high)

• Average number of offspring

  20000-50000

• Range time to hatching

  10 to 40 days

• Average time to hatching

  11 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 to 6 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  4 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 to 6 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  4 years

There is no ev­i­dence that At­lantic her­ring in­vest any en­er­gies to­ward par­ent­ing after they spawn.

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Clu­pea haren­gus may live up to 20 years.

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  20 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  22.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  19.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

At­lantic her­ring ag­gre­gate into mas­sive schools in the late sum­mer and early fall. In the west­ern At­lantic, they move into coastal wa­ters at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions in the Gulf of Maine and off­shore banks of Nova Sco­tia to spawn (Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004c). ("Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Ecol­ogy", 2004)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• motile
• nomadic
• migratory
• social
• colonial

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Al­though lit­tle is known of the be­hav­ioral rea­sons be­hind their noise pro­duc­tions, Clu­pea haren­gus are known to pro­duce and per­ceive sounds. Noise is usu­ally pro­duced at night by is prob­a­bly the re­sult of force­ful ejec­tion of air from the anal duct. The fre­quency of noise pro­duc­tion did not change due to feed­ing. This noise pro­duc­tion tends to in­crease with in­creas­ing num­bers of her­ring in a school, lead­ing to spec­u­la­tion that there is a so­cial com­po­nent to noise pro­duc­tion (Wil­son, Batty, and Dill, 2003). (Wil­son, et al., 2003)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

In the late 1700s, Leeuwen­hoek hy­poth­e­sized that Clu­pea haren­gus was a plank­ton feeder, stat­ing that "See­ing these things, I did not won­der that fish­er­men should imag­ine Her­rings have no food in their stom­achs, be­cause Her­rings do, in my opin­ion, feed on such small fishes ["an­i­mac­ules"], that they can­not take in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of them to dis­tend their stom­achs, as we see in other fish; and hence it is said, that Her­rings have no food in within their stom­achs." (Leeuwen­hoek, 1798) (Leeuwen­hoek, 1798)

With the ad­vent of bet­ter mi­cro­scopes and ob­ser­va­tional tech­niques, it was found that plank­ton (the "an­i­maclues" of Leeuwen­hoek's time) that Clu­pea haren­gus feeds upon, start­ing with lar­val snails, di­atoms, peri­dini­ans when first hatched, mov­ing on to cope­pods, am­phipods, pelagic shrimps, and de­ca­pod crus­tacean lar­vae when they reach adult­hood (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953)

• Primary Diet
• planktivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• eggs
• mollusks
• aquatic or marine worms
• aquatic crustaceans
• other marine invertebrates
• zooplankton

• Plant Foods
• phytoplankton

Pre­da­tion

As At­lantic her­ring are the prey species of many species of fish, mam­mals, and birds, her­ring are al­most al­ways found in schools (Bigelow and Schoreder, 1953). Some schools dis­play elab­o­rate pat­terns (Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004b). These schools may be quite large, stretch­ing sev­eral miles in length and vis­i­bly dark­en­ing the wa­ters (Jones, 1795). (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Life-Cy­cle", 2004; Jones, 1795)

Clu­pea haren­gus is a prey species of cod, pol­lock, had­dock, sil­ver hake, striped bass, mack­erel, tuna, salmon, dog­fish (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953), har­bor por­poises Pho­coena pho­coena, har­bor seals Phoca vi­t­ulina, gray seals Hali­choerus gry­pus, At­lantic puffins Frater­cula arc­tica, ra­zor­bills Alca torda, com­mon terns Sterna hirundo, arc­tic terns Sterna arc­tica, killer whales, baleen whales (Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004b), and hu­mans Homo sapi­ens. (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Life-Cy­cle", 2004)

• Known Predators

  • cod (Gadus)
  • pollock (Pollachius virens)
  • haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus)
  • silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis)
  • striped bass (Morone saxatilis)
  • mackerels (Trachurus)
  • tunas (Scombridae)
  • salmon (Salmonidae)
  • dogfish (Squalidae)
  • harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena)
  • harbor seals (Phoca vitulina)
  • gray seals (Halichoerus grypus)
  • Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica)
  • razorbills (Alca torda)
  • common terns (Sterna hirundo)
  • arctic terns (Sterna arctica)
  • killer whales (Orcinus orca)
  • baleen whales (Mysticeti)
  • humans (Homo sapiens)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Her­ring are a crit­i­cal part of the At­lantic ecosys­tem, being a prey species for a large va­ri­ety of species. They are pelagic plank­ton feed­ers (Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004b). ("Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Life-Cy­cle", 2004)

At­lantic her­ring are also the host of sev­eral par­a­sitic species. In a study of 220 Nor­we­gian spring spawn­ing her­ring, Tolo­nen and Karls­bakk (2002) de­tected 11 par­a­sitic species: the coc­co­di­ans Gous­sia clu­pearum and Eime­ria sar­di­nae, spores of the myx­o­zoan Cer­ato­myxa auer­bachi, adult trema­todes Hemi­u­rus spp., adult and lar­val ne­ma­todes Hys­terothy­lacium adun­cum and Anisakis sim­plex, and Cryp­to­cotyle lin­gua metac­er­car­ial in­fec­tions. (Tolo­nen and Karls­bakk, 2003)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Her­ring fish­eries in both Eu­rope and North Amer­ica have been im­por­tant sources of pro­tein in diets going back cen­turies. Jones (1795) in­di­cates that the Dutch fish­ery dates back to 1167, and Al­heit and Hagen (1997) in­di­cate the pres­ence of a Swedish fish­ery dat­ing back to the 10th Cen­tury. In North Amer­ica, the Na­tive Amer­i­cans were the first ones to use a sys­tem of weirs to catch her­rings, as they were dif­fi­cult to catch using the tra­di­tional meth­ods of hook or spear (Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium, 2004). (Jones, 1795)

The love of At­lantic her­ring as a food­stuff in Britain was well cap­tured by Jones (1795): "Yarmouth has long been fa­mous for its her­ring [fare], which was reg­u­lated by an act in the 31st [year] of Ed­ward the Third: and that town is obliged, by its char­ter, to send to the sher­iffs of Nor­wich 100 her­rings, to be made into twenty-four pies, by them to be de­liv­ered to the lord of the manor of East Car­leton, who is to con­vey them to the king." (Jones, 1795)

The At­lantic fish­ery con­tin­ues to be a pop­u­lar, if not a highly eco­nomic, one. In 2001, the New Eng­land her­ring fish­ery had an es­ti­mated total value of $15,615,237 in U. S. dol­lars (Parker, 2003). Sim­i­lar fish­eries are found through­out the range of Clu­pea haren­gus. (Parker, 2003)

The nu­tri­tional in­for­ma­tion for raw At­lantic her­ring is: 158 Calo­ries/100g, 17.96g pro­tien/100g, 0.0g car­bo­hy­drate/100g, 2.04g sat­u­rated fatty acid/100g, 3.736g mono­sat­u­rated fatty acid/100g, 2.133g polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acid/100g ("Calo­ries In Her­ring", 2004)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Be­fore large-scale fish­ing op­er­a­tions started in North Amer­ica, the vast­ness of the shoals of At­lantic her­ring "be­came ab­solutely a nui­sance" in the Chesa­peake Bay area (Buf­fon, 1793). Clu­pea haren­gus can be very sus­cep­ti­ble to pol­lu­tion and being beached dur­ing large storms. Bigelow and Schoreder (1953) de­scribe a "slaugh­ter of her­ring" that started in Oc­to­ber 5, 1920 and re­sulted in a tidal har­bor be­com­ing com­pletely cov­ered with dead her­ring. The large anoxic zone re­sult­ing from the de­com­po­si­tion of the mas­sive num­ber of dead her­ring caused even more fish kills. (Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953; Buf­fon, 1793)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Clu­pea haren­gus is not an en­dan­gered species. How­ever, with heavy fish­ing in the 1960s and a lack of re­cruit­ment in the 1970s, At­lantic her­ring fish­eries crashed. Al­though the fish­ery re­cov­ered since then, its vul­ner­a­bil­ity, es­pe­cially with in­creased po­ten­tial of cli­mate vari­abil­ity has lead the sev­eral coun­tries to con­duct stud­ies look­ing at sus­tain­able her­ring har­vests (Al­heit and Hagen, 1997). (Al­heit and Hagen, 1997)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

The fol­low­ing is a late 18th Cen­tury Eng­lish recipe for her­ring pie, per­haps sim­i­lar to the one re­quired of the city of Yarmouth in its city char­ter. The au­thor of this taxon ac­count adds this recipe ONLY as proof that her­ring have been used in a va­ri­ety of dif­fer­ent food­stuffs for some time through­out his­tory, and NOT as a sug­ges­tion for any fu­ture meal.

"A HER­RING PYE: Scale, gut, and wash them very clean, cut off the heads, fins, and tails; make a good crust, cover your dish, then sea­son your her­rings with beaten mace, pep­per and salt; put a lit­tle but­ter in the bot­tom of your dish, then a row of her­rings; pare some ap­ples, and cut them in thin slices all over, then peel some onions, and cut them in slices all over thick, lay a lit­tle but­ter on the top, put in a lit­tle water, lay on the lid, and bake it well." (Gel­lory, 1762) (Gelleroy, 1762)

Con­trib­u­tors

Shaw Lacy (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, William Fink (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Renee Sher­man Mul­crone (ed­i­tor).

Ref­er­ences

weightlossforgood.​co.​uk. 2004. "Calo­ries In Her­ring" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​weightlossforgood.​co.​uk/​nutrition/​herring.​htm.

Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium. 2004. "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Dis­tri­b­u­tion" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​herring/​biology/​distribution/​default.​asp.

Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium. 2004. "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Ecol­ogy" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​herring/​biology/​ecology/​default.​asp.

Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium. 2004. "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: Life-Cy­cle" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​herring/​biology/​life_​cycle/​default.​asp.

Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium. 2004. "Her­ring Bi­ol­ogy: What is a her­ring?" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​herring/​biology/​what/​default.​asp.

Gulf of Maine Aquar­ium. 2004. "Her­ring Har­vest: Fixed Gear Fish­ery - Her­ring Weirs in the Gulf of Maine" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​herring/​harvest_​and_​processing/​weirs/​default.​asp.

Al­heit, J., E. Hagen. 1997. Long-term cli­mate forc­ing of Eu­ro­pean her­ring and sar­dine pop­u­la­tions. Fish­eries Oceanog­ra­phy, 6:2: 130-139.

Bigelow, H., W. Schroeder. 1953. Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. FISH­ERY BUL­LETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SER­VICE, 74: 88-99. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​gma.​org/​fogm/​Clupea_​harengus.​htm.

Buf­fon, G. 1793. Nat­ural his­tory of birds, fish, in­sects and rep­tiles. Em­bell­ished with up­wards of two hun­dred en­grav­ings. In five vol­umes. .... Lon­don: J.S. Barr.

Car­di­nale, M., F. Ar­rhe­nius. 2000. De­creas­ing weight-at-age of At­lantic her­ring (Clu­pea haren­gus) from the Baltic Sea be­tween 1986 and 1996: a sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis. ICES Jour­nal of Ma­rine Sci­ence, 57: 882-893.

Corten, A. 1999. The reap­pear­ance of spawn­ing At­lantic her­ring (Clu­pea haren­gus) on Ab­erdean Bank (North Sea) in 1983 and its re­la­tion­ship to en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions. Cana­dian Jour­nal of Fish­eries and Aquatic Sci­ences, 56: 2051-2061.

Do­man­ico, M., R. Phillips, J. Schweigert. 1996. Se­quence vari­a­tion in ri­bo­so­mal DNA of Pa­cific (Clu­pea pal­lasii pal­lasii) and At­lantic her­ring (Clu­pea haren­gus). Cana­dian Jour­nal of Fish­eries and Aquatic Sci­ences, 53: 2418-2423.

Gelleroy, W. 1762. The Lon­don cook, or the whole art of cook­ery made easy and fa­mil­iar. Con­tain­ing a great num­ber of ap­proved and prac­ti­cal re­ceipts in every branch of cook­ery.. Lon­don: S. Crow­der, and Co., J. Coote; and J. Fletcher.

Jones, S. 1795. A nat­ural his­tory of fishes, and of rep­tiles, in­sects, wa­ters, earths, fos­sils, ... com­piled from the best au­thor­i­ties, and il­lus­trated by a great va­ri­ety of cop­per plates, .... Lon­don: E. New­berry.

Leeuwen­hoek, A. 1798. The se­lect works of Antony Van Leeuwen­hoek, con­tain­ing his mi­cro­scop­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies in many of the works of na­ture. Trans­lated from the Dutch and Latin edi­tions pub­lished by the au­thor, by Samuel Hoole. .... Lon­don: Henry Fry.

Parker, P. 2003. "CC­CHFA At­lantic Her­ring Scop­ing Com­ments" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 26, 2004 at http://​www.​ccchfa.​org/​headlines/​headlines_​article.​php?​page=1055517776.

Tolo­nen, A., E. Karls­bakk. 2003. The par­a­site fauna of the Nor­we­gian spring spawn­ing her­ring (Clu­pea haren­gus L.). ICES Jour­nal of Ma­rine Sci­ence, 60: 77-84.

Wil­son, B., R. Batty, L. Dill. 2003. Pa­cific and At­lantic her­ring pro­duce burst pulse sounds. Pro­ceed­ing of the Royal So­ci­ety of Lon­don B, Sup­ple­ment: S1-S3. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 11, 2004 at http://​www.​zoology.​ubc.​ca/​~bwil­son/her­ring/FRT­ing_her­ring_Wil­son_et_al.pdf.