TUNNY (Thunnus thynnus)

This article appears in Volume V27, Page 410 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TUM-VAN

TUNNY (Thunnus thynnus) , one of the largest fishes of the family of mackerels, belongs to the genus of which the bonito (Th. pelamys) and the albacores (Th. albacora, Th. alalonga, &c.) are equally well-known members. From the latter the tunny is distinguished by its much shorter pectoral fins, which reach backwards only to, or nearly to, the end of the first dorsal fin. It possesses nine short finlets behind the dorsal, and eight behind the anal fin. Its colour is dark bluish above, and greyish, tinged and spotted with silvery, below. The tunny is a pelagic fish, but periodically approaches the shore, wandering in large shoals, within well-ascertained areas along the

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

. It not infrequently appears in small companies or singly in the English Channel and in the German Ocean, probably in pursuit
Tunny.
of the shoals of pilchards and herrings on which it feeds. The regularity of its

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

on certain parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean has led to the

establishment

ESTABLISHMENT (0. Fr. establissement, Fr. etablissement,
late
- LATE
Norm. Fr. establishement, from O. Fr. establir, Fr. etablir, Lat. stabilire, to make
stable
- STABLE
)

of a systematic

fishery

FISHERY (LAW OF)

, which has been carried on from the time of the Phoenicians to the present day. Immense numbers of tunnies were caught on the Spanish

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

and in the Sea of Marmora, where, however, this industry has much declined. The Sardinian tunnies were considered to be of superior excellence. The greatest number is now caught on the north coast of Sicily, the fisheries of this

island

ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

supplying most of the preserved tunny which is exported to other parts of the world. In ancient times the fish were preserved in salt, and that coming from Sardinia, which was specially esteemed by the Romans, was known as
Salsamentum sardicum. At present preference is given to tunny preserved in oil. Many of the fishes, especially the smaller ones, are consumed fresh. The tunny occurs also in the Pacific and is much sought for by anglers on the coast of southern California, where tuna-fishing has become a fashionable sport; but several other species seem to take its place in the Indo-Pacific ocean. It is one of the largest fishes, attaining to a length of ten ft. and to a

weight

WEIGHT

of more than a thousand pounds.
In connexion with the extremely active life of these fishes allusion should be made to the fact, first ascertained in 1839 by John (brother of Sir Humphry) Davy, that the temperature of the blood of a tunny may be considerably higher than that of the surrounding water, a discovery which disposed of the time-honoured division of vertebrate animals into warm-blooded and cold-blooded.
The variations and movements of the tunny and albacores were studied with

special

SPECIAL

care by King Carlos of Portugal, who published in 1899 a large illustrated memoir entitled A Pesca do alum no Algarve in 1898 (Lisbon). This memoir is accompanied by excel-lent figures of the different species of Thunnus and charts of their distribution in the Atlantic.

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