The Japanese anchovy (''Engraulis japonicus'') is a schooling fish of the family

Engraulidae An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water. More than 140 species are placed in 1 ...

. It is common in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

south from the Sea of Okhotsk, widespread in the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, i ...

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour ter ...

, and East China Sea, and near the coasts of Japan. They live up to 2–3 years, similar to European anchovy. They spawn from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

to southern

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh ...

Gallery

Tatsukuri Engraulis japonica.jpg, Dried Japanese anchovy (''Engraulis japonica'') at the market Dae-myeolchi (closeup).jpg, Dried ''dae-myeolchi'' (large anchovies) Jung-myeolchi (closeup).jpg, Dried ''jung-myeolchi'' (medium anchovies)

Sources

''Engraulis japonicus'' at FishBase
Japanese anchovy Fish of Japan Fish of Korea Marine fauna of East Asia Anchovies Taxa named by Coenraad Jacob Temminck Taxa named by Hermann Schlegel Japanese anchovy {{Clupeiformes-stub