''Exocoetus volitans'', commonly known as the tropical two-wing

flyingfish The Exocoetidae are a family of marine fish in the order Beloniformes class Actinopterygii, known colloquially as flying fish or flying cod. About 64 species are grouped in seven to nine genera. While they cannot fly in the same way a bird ...

or blue flyingfish, is a species of

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or hor ...

native to tropical and subtropical seas. It can glide above the surface of the sea to escape

predators 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 ...

Description

The maximum length for this fish is about but a more common length is . The dorsal fin has no spines and 12 to 15 soft rays while the anal fin has no spines and 12 to 14 soft rays. The exceptionally large pectoral fins enable this fish to glide for long distances above the surface of the water. The upper parts of the body are an iridescent dark blue colour while the belly is silvery white. The pectoral fins and tail fin are greyish while the other fins are colourless. Juvenile fish are sometimes barred with black. This species can be distinguished from the oceanic two-wing flyingfish (''Exocoetus obtusirostris'') by having a less blunt snout and by the origin of the anal fin being at a location behind the origin of the dorsal fin.

Distribution and habitat

''Exocoetus volitans'' is present in the tropical and subtropical zones of all the world's oceans. Its range includes the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

and the western part of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

, but it is absent from the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

and largely absent from the inland southeastern Asian seas such as the

Celebes Sea The Celebes Sea, (; ms, Laut Sulawesi, id, Laut Sulawesi, fil, Dagat Selebes) or Sulawesi Sea, of the western Pacific Ocean is bordered on the north by the Sulu Archipelago and Sulu Sea and Mindanao Island of the Philippines, on the east by ...

, the

Sulu Sea The Sulu Sea ( fil, Dagat Sulu; Tausug: ''Dagat sin Sūg''; Chavacano: ''Mar de Sulu''; Cebuano: ''Dagat sa Sulu''; Hiligaynon: ''Dagat sang Sulu''; Karay-a: ''Dagat kang Sulu''; Cuyonon: ''Dagat i'ang Sulu''; ms, Laut Sulu) is a body o ...

and the

Flores Sea The Flores Sea covers of water in Indonesia. The sea is bounded on the north by the island of Celebes and on the south by Sunda Islands of Flores and Sumbawa. Geography The seas that border the Flores Sea are the Bali Sea (to the west), Java ...

. It is found in surface waters both in the open ocean and close to the coast.

Ecology

''E. volitans'' feeds in the open sea on

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, such as

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

s, and other

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

ic fauna. The female lays her clutches of 300 or 400 eggs in the open water. This fish sometimes launches itself into the air in an attempt to escape from

such as

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...

, dolphinfishes (''Coryphaena''), snake mackerel (''Gempylus serpens'') and the

rainbow runner The rainbow runner (''Elagatis bipinnulata''), also known as the rainbow yellowtail, Spanish jack and Hawaiian salmon, is a common species of pelagic marine fish of the jack family, Carangidae. The species is widespread throughout the tropical an ...

(''Elagatis bipinnulata''). However, in so doing, it exposes itself to a different set of predators in the form of

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...

s and other aquatic birds. It often exits the water in

shoals 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 o ...

and sometimes lands on the decks of boats. ''E. volitans'' have a high level of genetic similarity caused by a high rate of gene flow and a high level of population expansion, recently.

Status

This flyingfish is abundant in the tropical and subtropical parts of all oceans. It is not fished commercially, and no particular threats have been identified, so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2081360 Exocoetidae Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Fish of the Pacific Ocean Fish of the Atlantic Ocean