Billfish include the swordfish (sole member of the family Xiphiidae) and marlin, sailfish and spearfish (family Istiophoridae).
These fish dominate the seas as a top predator, but their pursuit and harvest by humans puts them under threat.
Billfish
White Marlin
Billfish
Swordfish
FWC Facts:
Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) live in family groups called pods. A group of dolphin pods is called a herd.
Billfish,
Ocean gar
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Billfishes, such as marlins and sailfishes, prey on the pelagic octopus Argonauta (Hanlon and Messenger, 1996)
Blue-Ringed Octopus - Received from Lindsay Rhinesmith
Q: What is the blue-ringed octopus' genus & species?
Other Names Needlenose Gar, Billfish, Billy Gar Description Lepisosteus is Greek, meaning "bony scale", and osseus is Latin, meaning "of bone.
Swordfish have the widest temperature range of any billfish and migrate seasonally to warmer waters in winter and cooler waters in summer. This highly migratory species can often be found where ocean currents meet and productivity is high.
They are members of the billfish family, and as such, have an upper jaw that juts out well beyond their lower jaw and forms a distinctive spear.
A great lover of the open ocean squalls that churn up its food, and well-known by the Pacific tuna industry for its association with tuna and large billfish, this species is pelagic, ...
Nakamura, I., 1985. FAO species catalogue. Vol. 5. Billfishes of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of marlins, sailfishes, spearfishes and swordfishes known to date. FAO Fish. Synop. 5(125):65 p.
The Bluntnose Sixgill shark eats large fish (like other sharks, billfish, dolphin, flounder, spurdogs, rays, and cod), crabs, shrimp, smaller fish, and squid with its very sharp, saw-like teeth. It probably hunts mostly at night.
SUBORDER SCOMBROIDEI
snake mackerels, cutlassfishes, scabbardfishes, swordfishes, billfishes, marlins, mackerels, tunas, bonitos
SUBORDER STROMATEOIDEI
amarsipids, medusafishes, flotsamfishes, ariommatids, squaretails, butterfishes ...
December 9, 2011 " Scientists sound an alarm that expanding ocean dead zones are shrinking the habitat for high value fish such as marlins, other billfish and tunas in the tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean. Without ... > full story ...
And with each FAD added to the fishery, the amount of by-catch goes up. More sharks, billfish, juvenile tunas, occasional sea-turtles and, yes, sometimes even dolphins are netted, drowned and discarded.
These fishes are not made for sustained speed and maneuverability, whereas tunas and billfishes (suborder Scombroidei), with their rounded and highly tapered bodies, are streamlined pelagic chasers capable of very high speeds over long periods.
Other species include the billfish and the houndfish, or agujon, an important food fish of Puerto Rico.
There are also problems resulting from the increase in numbers of deep-water tuna and billfish fisheries as these sea-lions become victims of bycatch (7).
Distribution and abundance of billfish larvae (Istiophoridae) in the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon and Coral Sea near Lizard Island, Australia
Distribution by collection data - what does this mean?
 See also: Shark, Squid, Coral, Marlin, Whale
  
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