Horse mackerel
| Horse mackerel | ||||||||||||
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Horse mackerel ( Trachurus trachurus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Trachurus trachurus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The Bastard - or horse mackerel ( Trachurus trachurus ) and mackerel or Suri called, is a marine fish on the coast of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean from Norway to South Africa and in the Mediterranean occurs. The horse mackerel is found on the coast of southern Africa up to the level of Maputo and thus also reaches the extreme southwestern Indian Ocean .
features
Horse mackerel grow to be four feet to a maximum of two feet, but usually stay at just over eight inches. The maximum published weight is 2 kg. They are blue-green in color, greyish or blackish on the top and silvery underneath. The gill cover has a strong black spot. The scales along the sideline are large (larger than the diameter of the eyes) and keeled. This is the most noticeable difference to the very similar Mediterranean horse mackerel ( Trachurus mediterraneus ), whose scales are much smaller along the sidelines.
The first, hard-edged dorsal fin is supported by nine rays and is higher than the longer second dorsal fin, which is supported by 30 to 36 soft rays. The anal fin has three hard and 24 to 32 soft rays.
Way of life
Horse mackerel live in large to very large schools, in summer mainly near the coast over sandy soils, in winter more oceanic at greater depths of up to 500 meters. They feed on smaller fish ( herrings , sprats ), crustaceans and cephalopods .
Reproduction
Horse mackerel are free-spawners whose females can lay up to 140,000 pelagic eggs. The larvae are 5 mm long when they hatch. Young fish can often be found under the umbrella of jellyfish, where they eat plankton as well as parts of the jellyfish tentacles and their sexual organs. Horse mackerel become sexually mature at a length of 25 centimeters and an age of 3 to 4 years.
hikes
The northern population of horse mackerel can be divided into two populations. The western population spawns in the Bay of Biscay and Ireland in early spring and then migrates along the British Isles to the northern North Sea and the coast of southern Norway. The North Sea population spawns in the southern North Sea in summer and then migrates to the central North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat .
use
Horse mackerel are becoming increasingly important in the fishing industry. While those from the North Sea are mainly processed into fishmeal, in southern Europe they are edible fish that are fresh, smoked or canned.
literature
- Bent J. Muus, Jørgen G. Nielsen: The marine fish of Europe in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Atlantic. Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07804-3 .
- Hans A. Baensch , Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 7 Perciformes (perch-like) . Mergus-Verlag, Melle 1998, ISBN 3-88244-107-0 .
Web links
- Horse mackerel on Fishbase.org (English)