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Capelin

Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-11

A small Arctic smelt that spawns on beaches in immense numbers, and the animal most of the North Atlantic's cold-water fisheries ultimately rest on.

A supporting record, not a fishing profile

This page is here so FishingHQ can describe a biological relationship accurately — usually because a fish covered elsewhere on the site feeds on this. It covers what it is, where it lives and the evidence behind that relationship, and deliberately nothing about methods, bait or tackle. Its presence here is not a statement that anybody fishes for it.

Capelin is a small, slender smelt of cold northern water, and in the Arctic and sub-Arctic it occupies the position that sandeels occupy further south: the species that converts plankton production into food at a size everything else can use.

Its most striking behaviour is spawning. Capelin come ashore in vast numbers to spawn on gravel beaches and in shallow water, an event known in Newfoundland as the capelin roll and which draws cod, seabirds and whales inshore behind them.

Capelin stocks fluctuate dramatically, and those fluctuations propagate through entire ecosystems. Collapses in capelin abundance have been associated with poor condition and poor recruitment in cod and in seabirds across the North Atlantic, which is why the species is monitored closely despite its size.

It is included here so that the diets of Atlantic cod, halibut and Arctic char can name their principal prey rather than approximate it.

Identification

FishingHQ holds no photograph of this species whose identity and licensing it can vouch for, so it is not showing one. Misidentified fish photographs teach identification wrongly, and a picture with an unchecked caption would be worse than none. The identification points below are what to look at instead.

Scientific name
Mallotus villosus
Family
Osmeridae
Water
Saltwater
Conservation status
Least Concern
Regions
Arctic & Subarctic, Northern Europe, North America
  • Small, slender, silvery fish with a distinct adipose fin behind the dorsal, marking it as a smelt relative.
  • Very fine scales giving a smooth appearance, with a translucent olive back and silver flanks.
  • Spawning males develop a band of enlarged, roughened scales along the flanks and enlarged fins.
  • Mouth reaching to about the middle of the eye, with small teeth on the jaws.

Size

Typical
13–20 cm
Large
up to about 25 cm

Lifecycle and reproduction

Capelin mature at two to four years and many die after spawning, particularly males. Populations are therefore built on a small number of year classes and swing sharply with recruitment.

Spawns on gravel beaches and shallow subtidal grounds in spring and summer, with adhesive eggs deposited among gravel. Mass strandings of spawning fish are a normal part of the event rather than a mortality signal.

Feeding and senses

Feeds on planktonic crustaceans, principally copepods and euphausiids, in cold surface and mid waters. Feeding is concentrated in the productive part of the year, and condition varies markedly between seasons.

A visual planktivore with strong schooling behaviour mediated by vision and the lateral line, active in the long daylight of high-latitude summers.

Through the year

Undertakes long feeding migrations offshore and returns to coastal spawning grounds in spring and summer. The inshore spawning migration is the single most important predictable food event in several northern fisheries.

Distribution

Circumpolar in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, including the Barents Sea, Icelandic waters, Greenland and the north-west Atlantic south to the Gulf of St Lawrence, in cold shelf waters.

This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.

Why anglers care

Not an angling target. Capelin are caught commercially, are gathered by hand from spawning beaches in some communities, and matter to anglers as the reason cod and other predators appear inshore when they do.

Handling and returning

Not normally handled by anglers on rod and line. Where capelin are used as bait they are handled frozen and used quickly, and locally gathered spawning fish may be subject to collection rules that differ between jurisdictions and are worth checking first.

Where to go next

Similar and related fish

What these connections rest on (3)

Scientific evidence — 3 connections

Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.

  • Atlantic cod

    Recorded diet evidence identifies Mallotus villosus as a food item of this predator at species level. The edge is written at that granularity and no further.

    • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Food items recorded for this predator, including Mallotus villosus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
    • FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species account describing the diet of this predator in the region where Mallotus villosus occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Atlantic halibut

    Recorded diet evidence identifies Mallotus villosus as a food item of this predator at species level. The edge is written at that granularity and no further.

    • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Food items recorded for this predator, including Mallotus villosus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
    • FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species account describing the diet of this predator in the region where Mallotus villosus occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Atlantic salmon

    Recorded diet evidence identifies Mallotus villosus as a food item of this predator at species level. The edge is written at that granularity and no further.

    • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Food items recorded for this predator, including Mallotus villosus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
    • FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species account describing the diet of this predator in the region where Mallotus villosus occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Where you will find it

What these connections rest on (1)

Scientific evidence — 1 connection

Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.

  • Greenland and the high Arctic

    A distribution association between an animal and a described water body, which is what the `inhabits` predicate is for — the kind of water rather than a named mark.

    • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Distribution, habitat association and depth range recorded for the species, including its occurrence in the water body concerned.States this directlyPassage read and verified
    • The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: Assessment and range account for the species, including the systems and coasts it occupies.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Sources for this page

  • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species identity, binomial, family placement, size, distribution and recorded biology for this species.States this directlyPassage read and verified
  • FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The regional species account describing identity, distribution and the role of this species in the fisheries and food webs it belongs to.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.

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