Cod
Fish
A large, barbel-chinned fish that hunts along the cold North Atlantic seabed — and one of the most important food fish in history.
💡 Fun Facts
- A cod has a single whisker-like barbel under its chin that it uses to taste and feel for food on the seabed.
- One big female cod can lay several million eggs in a single spring — one of the highest egg counts of any fish!
- Cod were once so important that countries argued over them in the "Cod Wars" between Britain and Iceland.
Name Story
Gadus morhua
means “cod, twice over — both names just mean 'cod'”
What does its name mean?
- Gadus — a cod or codfishLatinised from Ancient Greek gados, an old name for a fish
- morhua — coda Latin-dressed version of a medieval word for cod (compare French morue)
Both halves of the name simply mean 'cod': Gadus from an old Greek word for a fish, and morhua a Latin-dressed version of the medieval word for cod. The great naturalist Linnaeus effectively named it 'cod-cod'!