Eleginus gracilis (Tilesius, 1810).

Saffron Cod. To 55 cm (21.7 in) TL (Cohen et al. 1990) and possibly to 63 cm (24.8 in) TL (Mecklenburg et al. 2016). North Pacific Ocean and adjacent Arctic; Yellow Sea to East Siberian Sea and east to Simpson Strait, Nunavut, Canada (Renaud in Coad and Reist 2018); Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering Seas, and Gulf of Alaska to Sitka, south-eastern Alaska (Mecklenburg et al. 2002). Marine, brackish, and fresh waters (Dyldin and Orlov 2017); depth: to continental shelf edge at 200 m (656 ft) (Cohen in Cohen et al. 1990) or 360 m (1,181 ft) (Kim 2004). Based on genetic data from fish from the Chukchi Sea and Gulf of Alaska this may be a species complex comprised of two species (Sme et al. 2018). “Additional taxonomic study is needed to precisely delimit ranges” (Mecklenburg et al. 2016). Molecular evidence indicated to investigators that Eleginus should be synonymized with Microgadus (Carr et al. 1999); additional studies are needed for confirmation.