Is Viperfish kosher?
No — Viperfish is not kosher under Jewish dietary law.
Not kosher. Deep-sea fish with scaleless, elongated bodies and oversized teeth. Rarely eaten but occasionally appears in deep-sea bycatch.
Image: Photo by NOAA Ocean Exploration, Voyage to the Ridge 2022 · licensed Public domain · source
About Viperfish
Deep-sea predators with needle-like teeth and bioluminescent organs. A viperfish is any species of the genus Chauliodus, marine fish inhabiting the twilight or mesopelagic zone. Viperfish are at most around 30 cm (12 in), and are characterized by silvery scales, long needle-like teeth and photophores along the ventral side of their body (though other fish of the family Stomiidae often have the latter two traits). The photophores or light organs allow viperfish to bioluminesce, which likely allows them to camouflage against the 1% of sunlight that reaches to below 200 m (660 ft) depth, an ability known as counter-illumination. They are found all around the world in tropical and temperate oceans, and undergo diel vertical migration to feed. A viperfish is any species of the genus Chauliodus, marine fish inhabiting the twilight or mesopelagic zone. Viperfish are at most around 30 cm (12 in), and are characterized by silvery scales, long needle-like teeth and photophores along the ventral side of their body (though other fish of the family Stomiidae often have the latter two traits). The photophores or light organs allow viperfish to bioluminesce, which likely allows them to camouflage against the 1% of sunlight that reaches to below 200 m (660 ft) depth, an ability known as counter-illumination. They are found all around the world in tropical and temperate oceans, and undergo diel vertical migration to feed. Description Viperfish are covered in silvery scales arranged in five longitudinal rows. These scales are easily shed, and may also be dissolved in preservation fluid when specimens are preserved, leading some publications to describe them as scaleless. Beneath the scales, the skin is covered with hexagonal pigment patterns and an opalescent, slimy substance. One species of viperfish, C. sloani, has a sampled standard length of 64 to 260 mm (2.5 to 10.2 in), with a mean SL of 120.3 mm (4.74 in). The same species...
Kosher ruling
Source: Orthodox Union; Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0); Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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