What Does Pelagic Mean?

Pelagic fish live in the open ocean. The deep open water column they live in is basically not close to the bottom of the sea, or not close to the shore. They inhabit the pelagic zone, which means open sea.

Pelagic fish are free swimming fish and are divided into two groups, foraging fish and predator fish.

Foraging fish are species like sardines, shad and anchovies.

The predator fish, are the bigger fish that will generally feed on the smaller foraging fish.

Some pelagic species are also excellent fighting fish and game fish. For more information visit, What Are Game Fish?

Pelagic fish can also be further divided into oceanic pelagic fish and coastal pelagic fish. With the coastal fish living along coastal areas, but not very close to the shore.

Some pelagic fish will swim in schools, other solitary. They are excellent swimmers taking advantage of the open waters.

What are some pelagic fish?

For fishing, some pelagic species are; mackerel, bluefish, wahoo, salmon, mahi mahi, (Dolphinfish.) albacore and types of tuna. Like the yellowfin tuna, big eye tuna and skip jack tuna.

Some pelagic fish are billfish, which includes marlin, sailfish and swordfish.

Oceanic sharks like the blue shark and white tip shark, hammerhead shark, also the mako shark are classified as pelagic species. Night Fishing can be exciting for these sharks and you never know what you are going to catch.

Also some stingrays are pelagic.

 

Are pelagic fish, saltwater or freshwater fish?

The majority of pelagic fish species are saltwater, but some pelagic species live in the deep freshwater lakes.

 

What are the pelagic zones?

Ocean pelagic zones can be further divided into different subzones or sections. These subzones range in the height of the water column, from the bottom to the surface.

The pelagic subzones include:  The Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, Bathyal zone, Abyssal zone and the Hadal zone.

 

What does a demersal fish mean?

A demersal fish lives on the bottom of the ocean floor, or very close to the bottom. In terms of where they frequent and feed in the ocean, a demersal fish is probably nearly opposite of a pelagic fish.

 

Conclusion. –  What does pelagic mean?

Pelagic fish live in the open sea or lakes. The water column zone they live in, is away from the shore and not on the ocean floor, or lake bottom.

The predator fish and foraging fish are two groups of pelagic fish. The categories of these fish can also be grouped in coastal pelagic fish and oceanic pelagic fish.