The connective tissues of fish

Summary. 'Gaping'is a phenomenon in which slits or holes appear between the muscle blocks, so that in a bad case the fillet falls to pieces and cannot be processed or sold. the gaping in whole fish frozen in rigor mortis, thawed and filleted was shown to be related to the biological condition of the fish, strong healthy fish gaping a great deal, while spent or starving fish did not gape at all. It is postulated that when fish are frozen in rigor mortis the ice growing in the connective tissue weakens it, so that it may break under the rigor mortis contraction. the contraction of spent or starving fish appears to be too weak to break the connective tissue. No gaping was shown by similar fish frozen before rigor mortis. the practical importance of the findings is discussed.