[3] Apart from their unique appearance wolffish are distinguished by the natural antifreeze they produce to keep their blood moving fluidly in their very cold habitat, involvement by both the male and female in brood bearing, and the large size of their eggs.

They are also an important factor in controlling green crab and sea urchin populations, which can become overly disruptive to habitats if left unchecked.

[4] The Atlantic wolffish was first formally described in 1758 in the 10th edition of the Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus with its type locality given as the "northern English Ocean".

[3] Its body is long, subcylindrical in front, compressed in the caudal portion, smooth and slippery, the rudimentary scales being embedded and almost hidden in the skin.

In the west Atlantic, they are present as far north as the Davis Strait, of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, populating the shores of Greenland, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia,[10] extending as far south as Cape Cod.

[11] In the eastern Atlantic, they range from Russia's White Sea and Novaya Zemlya, through the Nordic countries and British Isles, to the Bay of Biscay.

This name is derived from the fish's strong jaws and teeth, which are capable of crushing hard-shelled prey such as shellfish and crustaceans.

They are an important predator of sea urchins and green crabs, whose populations escalate rapidly and can negatively affect the health of a marine system.

[15] The eggs are laid on the ocean floor, often in shoal water, sticking together in loose clumps, surrounded by seaweeds and stones.

On October 1, 2008, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), along with Dr. Erica Fuller and Dr. Les Watling, petitioned the US NMFS for the protection of the Atlantic wolffish under the ESA.

[17] On January 1, 2009 the NMFS announced a positive 90-day finding that the petition was warranted, which triggered the initiation of a status review which will result in a decision on whether to list the species under the ESA.

[18] In 2014, HELCOM classified the Atlantic wolffish population in the Baltic Sea as endangered on the IUCN Red List scale.