Atlantic Herring

The Atlantic herring is a small, schooling fish of the family Clupeidae, found in vast numbers across the temperate and subarctic North Atlantic. It swims in dense shoals that can number in the millions, a behavior that has supported some of history's largest commercial fisheries and shaped coastal economies on both sides of the Atlantic for centuries. It feeds mainly on plankton and forms a key link in the ocean food web, providing prey for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.