Blackfin icefish

Blackfin icefish

We would like to congratulate Felicitas van den Elzen on this sponsorship, which she received from her grandmother Renate van den Elzen.

Icefish are very special animals. Under the extreme living conditions of the Southern Ocean, they have lost the red blood pigment haemoglobin in the course of evolution, which is a special feature among vertebrates. Haemoglobin increases the blood's ability to absorb oxygen - icefish compensate for this with an extraordinarily large amount of their colourless blood, which is pumped through the body at high speed by their very large heart. This is only possible under the special conditions of the extremely cold Antarctic Ocean with its stable high oxygen content. To be able to exist here at all, icefish have antifreeze proteins that lower the freezing point of their blood so that it does not freeze even when it comes into contact with sea ice. Thanks to these very special adaptations, icefish have also been able to colonise the heavily iced flat areas of the Antarctic shelf. The species of blackfin icefish on display in the Museum Koenig exhibition feeds primarily on other (ice)fish and krill in the wild. The animals grow to over half a metre in length and, like other icefish, have white gills due to the absence of haemoglobin.