Brill – a new fish species in Finland

There are now 100 species of fish recorded as occurring in Finland, excluding lampreys

On 29 July 2008, Torsten Sjölund, technician at the Tvärminne Zoological Station, netted a fish that greatly resembled a turbot yet lacked the typical rough bumps. Closer examination showed that the fish was actually a brill (Scopthalmus rhombus).

This was the first recorded sighting of a brill in Finland. In Sweden, brill have reportedly been caught in the Baltic Sea in the southern part of the country, and there have been no sightings in Estonia. There are several random sightings on record in Latvia.

The brill belongs to the turbot family (Scophthalmidae) and resembles the turbot. It is not quite as round, though, and unlike the turbot the brill has no rough bumps on its skin and has scales on the side where its eyes are. The foremost spines of the dorsal fin are connected by an incomplete membrane, creating an unusual appearance. The brill caught in the Baltic Sea are generally less than 35 cm long, but in the Atlantic the species may grow to a length of 75 cm and achieve a weight of 6 to 7 kg. The brill caught at Tvärminne was 30 cm long and weighed 465 g.

The normal range of the brill covers the Atlantic seaboard from Trondheim in Norway to Morocco, extending to the waters around Iceland, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. In the Baltic Sea, it only occurs regularly in the west and south, to the west of the island of Bornholm.

The brill is delicious to eat and is thus heavily fished in the Atlantic. The populations in the Baltic Sea are not strong, and brill are mainly caught alongside catches of turbot, a few dozens of tonnes per year.

A checklist of all the fish appearing in Finland can be found in Finnish Fish Species (see http://www.rktl.fi/en/julkaisut/j/419.html ). The brill is referred to in this publication as a potential new species, but its presence can now be confirmed.

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