The ongoing Atlantic cod fishing season offers some colorful surprises. (Photo: Alexander Olsen, fisherman on board the “Skolmen”)

The fishermen on board the Norwegian fishing boat got an unusual catch in the waters off Vesterålen, an archipelago in Nordland County. Last Monday, the “Skolmen” with skipper Rune Solvang got a bright yellow cod, Lofotposten writes.

– I have never seen anything like this. None of us on board ever have. It is extremely unusual. Some cod have small spots here and there, but I have never seen a bright yellow cod, says Solvang to NRK by phone from the Norwegian Sea off Vesterålen.

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– This is the most yellow cod I have ever seen. It is pretty rare that cod are completely without dark pigments, says an enthusiastic Egil Karlsbakk at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.

Not Sick

Karlsbakk is a specialist in fish diseases and tells that the fish did not look sick or contaminated.

– If it is fresh and nice, it must be faulty pigmentation. Cod normally have white, yellow, red and black pigment cells. Here, it appears that both the black and the red are absent.

Cod pigment cells can contract and become very small, and then it can change color.

– It also has a different color at night, slightly darker with transverse stripes. It can also become bright yellow eating crustaceans such as shrimps, says Karlsbakk.

Despite the special color, the “Golden Cod” did not get any special treatment.

– It was fat and nice, and very pretty. It was delivered with the rest of the catch. The meat was nice and looked pretty ordinary to me, skipper Rune Solvang tells.

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Text by: Thor Lanesskog, Anette Broteng Christiansen, ThorNews

Source: Lofotposten, NRK Nordland

Categories: Nature, Quirky