Hakes Grenadiers Cods and Relatives: Gadiformes

Grenadiers, hakes, cods, and their relatives live in the open ocean at all depths, the deepest-occurring species living deeper than 3,000 feet (900 meters). Fishes in this group also live in estuaries (EHS-chew-air-eez), or the areas where rivers meet the sea, sometimes in eel grass beds; in shallow waters near the coast; on bottoms consisting of rock, sand, mud, gravel, or broken shells; and on the bottoms of rivers and lakes. Some fishes in this group migrate (MY-grayt) or travel from one habitat to another to spawn, or reproduce, and then continue to change habitats as they change life stages. A fish may move from an estuary, across the continental shelf, to the upper part of the continental slope, and from the surface to the bottom.