[4] The Northern wolffish is found in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans where it is distributed in the Barents and Norwegian seas to Spitsbergen, Iceland, Faroe Islands, southern Greenland and south along east coast of North America almost to Cape Cod and west to Prince Patrick Island in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

[8] This species inhabits the open areas of the North Atlantic and the offshore region of the continental shelf occurring in bathypelagic waters and has been recorded at a depth of 1,325 m (4,347 ft), the deepest any wolffish has been recorded at, living mainly in the free of the substrate in the water column and occasionally moving up to the surface.

Late in the year, females lay about 46,500 large eggs (up to 8 mm or 5⁄16 inch in diameter) which sink to the sea floor, where they are guarded in nests by the males until they hatch.

[7] This fish feeds in open water on comb jellies and jellyfish, and on bottom-living crustaceans and invertebrates, such as crabs, sea urchins, brittle stars, and starfish.

[7] In Europe it is regarded as Endangered because of its sedentary habits, the numbers taken as bycatch by fisheries and the threat of anthropogenic climate change.

[1] The Northern wolfish overlaps in range with the Bering wolffish (A. orientalis) in the Bathurst Inlet where the local Inuit do not distinguish between the species, calling both by the name akoak or akoaksaluk ("old woman fish").