The blacktip trevally (''Caranx heberi''), also known as the blacktip kingfish or yellowtail kingfish, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of large

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

fish classified in the jack

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Carangidae. The blacktip trevally is distributed throughout the

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

to subtropical

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and West Pacific Oceans, ranging from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in the west to

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in the east. It inhabits coastal waters throughout its range, preferring moderately deep clear waters over rocky and

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s. The blacktip trevally is easily distinguished by its yellow fins and a dark upper

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

lobe which gives the species its

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

, as well as a host of other anatomical features. The species is known to reach a maximum size of 1 m. It is a benthopelagic

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

, commonly forming small

shoal In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...

s where it takes a variety of fishes,

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

s and

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s as prey. Little is known of reproduction in the species, and spawning is assumed to take place in more tropical regions of its range, with juveniles known to inhabit bays and large

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

. Blacktip trevally are often caught using hook and line and various nets in commercial

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...

although don't make up a large part of the market. They are also popular with anglers due to their fighting ability and decent table qualities.

Taxonomy and naming

The blacktip trevally is classified within the genus ''

Caranx ''Caranx'' is a genus of tropical to subtropical marine fishes in the jack family Carangidae, commonly known as jacks, trevallies and kingfishes. They are moderate- to large-sized, deep-bodied fishes which are distinguished from other carangid g ...

'', one of a number of groups known as the jacks or trevallies. ''Caranx'' itself is part of the larger jack and horse mackerel family Carangidae, which in turn is part of the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

Carangiformes Carangiformes is an order of the ray-finned fishes. The order is part of a clade which is a sister clade to the Ovalentaria, the other orders in the clade being Synbranchiformes, Anabantiformes, Istiophoriformes and Pleuronectiformes. The Carang ...

. As currently accepted, the species was first scientifically described by John Whitchurch Bennett in 1830 based on the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

specimen taken from the south coast of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. He named this new species ''Scomber heberi'', placing it in the mackerel genus which at that time was a common genus for placing carangid fishes. The origin of the

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

is unclear, with it possibly named after someone or relate to the German word ''Heber'', meaning "lob". With the creation of the genus ''Caranx'', the species was transferred there, where it has remained. There is some confusion over a species described by Peter Forsskål in 1775 under the name ''Scomber sansun'' and later transferred to ''

Caranx sansun The blacktip trevally (''Caranx heberi''), also known as the blacktip kingfish or yellowtail kingfish, is a species of large marine fish classified in the jack family Carangidae. The blacktip trevally is distributed throughout the tropical to subt ...

''. This species is still listed as valid by some authorities, although a 1968 review of the

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

J.L.B. Smith James Leonard Brierley Smith (26 September 1897 – 8 January 1968) was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist, and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought to be long e ...

failed to find the holotype and suggested a new name with holotype be introduced to replace it; ''Caranx williamsi''. This name was sunk into ''C. heberi'' by William Smith-Vaniz in a major review, indicating ''C. sansun'' also should be sunk. Despite this, the name remains valid amongst some authorities. A second, later independent description of the fish by

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

produced the name ''Caranx sem'', which became common throughout the literature. Probable synonymy with ''C. heberi'' was recognized by Henry Fowler in 1905 and is currently recognized as such due to formal synonymisation by John Randall.

Distribution and habitat

The blacktip trevally is distributed throughout the

and subtropical waters of the

and West Pacific Oceans. In the western part of its range, the species ranges from

and

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

north along the

east Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

n coast up to the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

and

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

. Its distribution continues eastward through

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, South East Asia and the

Indonesian Archipelago The islands of Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Indonesia) or Nusantara, may refer either to the islands comprising the country of Indonesia or to the geographical groups which include its islands. History ...

. Its range extends south to northern

, north to

, and to

in the east. The blacktip trevally is predominantly an

inshore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

species, frequenting clean open coastal waters as an adult, with juveniles also found in large bays and

. Adults are often found over moderately deep rocky

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

s and pinnacles as well as open sandy areas.

Description

The blacktip trevally is a large fish, growing to a maximum recorded size of 1 m in length and 12.5 kg in weight. It is similar to most other jacks in having a compressed,

oblong An oblong is a non-square rectangle. Oblong may also refer to: Places * Oblong, Illinois, a village in the United States * Oblong Township, Crawford County, Illinois, United States * A strip of land on the New York-Connecticut border in the Unit ...

body, with the dorsal profile much more convex than the ventral profile, particularly

anteriorly Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

. The

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

is in two distinct sections; the first consisting of 8

spine Spine or spinal may refer to: Science Biology * Vertebral column, also known as the backbone * Dendritic spine, a small membranous protrusion from a neuron's dendrite * Thorns, spines, and prickles, needle-like structures in plants * Spine (zoolog ...

and the second of 1 spine and 19 to 21

soft rays Fish anatomy is the study of the form or morphology of fish. It can be contrasted with fish physiology, which is the study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. In practice, fish anatomy and fish physiology co ...

. The

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

consists of 2 anteriorly detached spines followed by 1 spine and 15 to 17 soft rays. The ventral fin consists of 1 spine and 5 soft rays, while the

is strongly forked. The species

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

is moderately arched anteriorly, with 50 to 60 scales in this section, while the straight section contains 0 to 4

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number w ...

and 30 to 40 strong scutes. The pattern of breast scales is variable, ranging from fully scaled to naked ventrally. The species has moderately well developed

adipose eyelid An adipose eyelid is a transparent eyelid found in some species of fish, that covers some or all of the eye. They are most commonly found on deep sea (benthic) fish, but can also be seen on non-benthic fish. Fish with this feature include milkfish ...

s, while its dentition consists of an outer row of widely spaced canines and an inner band of villiform teeth in the upper

jaw The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term ''jaws'' is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serv ...

and a row of widely spaced conical teeth on the lower jaw. The blacktip trevally has 24 to 27

gill raker Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of the ...

s and 24

vertebrae The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic i ...

. The blacktip trevally's colouration is distinctive, with the upper body being dark bronze to yellow green while the lower body fades to silvery white below. The caudal fin is bright to olive yellow, with the top half normally black to dark, giving the species its common name. Other fins range from bright yellow to dusky with little yellow at all. The species also lacks the dark spot on the opercular margin that many related species possess.

Habitat and behavior

The blacktip trevally travels in both small

s and individually throughout its habitat, with juveniles more commonly found in shoals. They appear to be migratory, with South Africa recording influxes of the species in summer, while in India they arrive after the

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

s and continue their inhabitance through the cold months. The species is a benthopelagic

, taking its prey from the

sea floor The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

and higher in the water column. Prey items include a variety of fish,

s, and crustaceans including

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

mantis shrimp Mantis shrimp, or stomatopods, are carnivorous marine crustaceans of the order Stomatopoda (). Stomatopods branched off from other members of the class Malacostraca around 340 million years ago. Mantis shrimp typically grow to around in lengt ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

s and

crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ...

. Reproduction in the species is poorly understood, although observations indicate it

spawns Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquat ...

in the more tropical regions of its range, with sexual maturity reached at 50 cm.

Relationship with humans

The blacktip trevally is of minor importance to commercial

throughout its range, taken by hook and line and various

netting In law, set-off or netting are legal techniques applied between persons or businesses with mutual rights and liabilities, replacing gross positions with net positions. It permits the rights to be used to discharge the liabilities where cross cla ...

methods, from where it is sold fresh, salted or dried at

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

. The species is considered a good

gamefish Game fish, sport fish or quarry refer to popular fish pursued by recreational anglers, and can be freshwater or saltwater fish. Game fish can be eaten after being caught, or released after capture. Some game fish are also targeted commerciall ...

and can be taken by fish or squid baits as well as various patterns of lure and fly. When taken from the water, the fish often 'grunt' in similar manner to a young pig. They are considered an excellent

table fish Many species of fish are caught by humans and consumed as food in virtually all regions around the world. Fish has been an important dietary source of protein and other nutrients throughout human history. The English language does not have ...

despite being known to be a host to parasitic infection in some regions. The IGFA all tackle world record for the species stands at 8.20 kg (18 lb 1oz) caught off

Bazaruto Island Bazaruto ( pt, Ilha do Bazaruto, from Ushurutswa, island of the mist) is a sandy island located approximately southeast of the mouth of the Save River, Mozambique (). It is the largest island in the Bazaruto Archipelago and in the Bazaruto Nati ...

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

in 2008.

References

External links

Blacktip trevally at FishbaseEncyclopedia of Life page
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2215203

blacktip trevally The blacktip trevally (''Caranx heberi''), also known as the blacktip kingfish or yellowtail kingfish, is a species of large marine (ocean), marine fish classified in the jack Family (biology), family Carangidae. The blacktip trevally is distribut ...

Fish of the Indian Ocean Marine fauna of East Africa Marine fauna of South Asia Marine fauna of Southeast Asia Marine fish of Northern Australia Taxa named by John Whitchurch Bennett