swordfish

(also called “broadbill”; for the right pronunciation, please click here)

a kind of fish – sea water – finned, bony (but adults without scales) – large with long, rounded body in black, greyish-blue, brown, metallic purple or bronze, pointed head with large round eyes, with a long, sharp, and the upper jaw grows into a long, sharp, sword-like beak (bill) long fin on the back (in some sub-species the back fin opens up like a crest), long side fin and a short back fin, crescent shaped tail fin; size: on average, 4 feet in length and 100 Kg. in weight (some sub-species grow to 14 feet in length and 650 Kg. in weight), (female larger than male); feeds on (eats) mostly fish, also squid, octopus, etc; lives for 3-9 years; only one of its kind found in tropical and temperate oceans

A group of swordfish is called a ‘flotilla’.

Special Features:

a sword fish’s sword

Swordfish are a popular food and sport fish. Swordfish are also migratory, i.e. they travel long distances depending on the weather conditions! Swordfish are excellent swimmer – can swim at speeds of more than 90 kilometres per hour.

The most striking feature of the swordfish is, as the name suggests, the sword-like beak (bill) on the upper jaw which the fish uses for slashing at a school of small fish to stun or kill the fish before eating them; besides, the ‘sword’ may be used in defence against large sharks which attach them!

The less known feature of the swordfish is that though the swordfish, like most other bony fish, is a cold-blooded (‘echtothermic) animal, it has ‘heat glands’ near its eyes which are used to heat the eyes so that the fish can see better in the water! This feature of having special organs to heat some parts of a cold-blooded animals in fish is very rare – of all the 25, 000 species (kinds) of bony fish species only 22 species have this feature and the swordfish is one them!!

Compare: There is a chance of our getting the ‘swordfish’ confused with the ‘sailfish’, therefore, please visit sailfish.