Nearly 75 of the 80-100 species of Antarctic benthic (bottom-dwelling) fish belong to the group "Nototheniiformes", most of which are sluggish bottom dwellers, with large heads and tapering bodies. As a group, they are highly diversified in structure, habit and distribution. Although Antarctic bottom fish can be locally important in coastal regions, such as Iles Kerguelen and South Georgia they are usually insignificant in the Southern Ocean as a whole, because the narrow continental shelf surrounding the continent limits the abundance of spawning sites of these bottom dwellers.

There are no reliable estimates of the stocks, biomass or productivity of Antarctic fish. Although the USSR is now marketing "Notothenia rossi" in Moscow and other cities, it is difficult even to guess the magnitude of this or any other fish stock in the Antarctic. Their remarkable adaptation to temperatures below the natural freezing points of their body fluids has recently begun to attract considerable attention.