Tuna are saltwater fish belonging to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the mackerel family, comprising 15 species across five genera that range in size from the bullet tuna, at a maximum length of about 50 centimeters, to the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which can reach 4.6 meters and 684 kilograms and live up to 50 years. Tuna, opah and mackerel sharks are the only fish able to maintain a body temperature higher than the surrounding water, and as an active, agile predator the tuna has a sleek, streamlined body and is among the fastest-swimming pelagic fish, with the yellowfin tuna capable of speeds up to 75 kilometers per hour. Found in warmer seas, tuna is commercially fished extensively as a food fish and is also popular as a bluewater game fish.
Facts
Earliest Documented Use, From (Year) Connections
Sources
1. Exploitation history of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, ICES Journal of Marine Science
Body text, historical review of Atlantic bluefin tuna exploitation evidence
Paintings of BFT in Genovese's Cave on the isle of Levanzo (near Sicily, Italy), dated to ∼9200 years bce (Tusa, 1999; Spoto, 2002), are the earliest reliable sources of evidence that BFT fishing had begun in the Mediterranean, and was clearly of some cultural importance by the Mesolithic.
ICES Journal of Marine Science, description lead (allergen)
Tuna are saltwater fish belonging to the tribe Thunnini
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