The Mediterranean sand smelt, ''Atherina hepsetus'', is a species of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
in the family
Atherinidae
The Old World silversides are a family, Atherinidae, of fish in the order Atheriniformes. Atherinidae are abundant and considered bony fish (teleost) that are widespread globally, living in rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters. They occur worl ...
.
Description
The body is rather long, slender and moderately flattened. The mouth is protrusible, directed upward with small teeth; the head and body are scaly.
The lower jaw has an upper expansion within the mouth (high dentary bone).
Two separate dorsal fins, all rays of first and 1-2 anterior rays of second dorsal fin are unsegmented, with the remaining rays segmented. The anal fin is similar to the second dorsal fin, while the caudal fin is forked. Body is silverish white, darker on the back, with the light blue horizontal stripe extending to the tail.
[
The maximum size is up to 20 cm in length.][
In the Mediterranean, it spawns from December to May.]
Habitat
It is a pelagic
The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...
-neritic
The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth.
From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminate ...
, brackishwater / marine fish, widespread in the eastern Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
coasts of Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
and Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
including Madeira and the Canary Islands. It is also found in the western Mediterranean
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 Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
, Adriatic and Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
s.[
]
Fishing
The major small-scale fishing gears exploiting this species are the various coastal beach seines, small mesh size (10 mm) gill nets and lift-nets.
Rarely it can be caught on very small hook, baited with small chunks of fish meat. Live Mediterranean sand smelt is excellent bait for many predatory species that feed on this gregarious fish.[
]
Cuisine
The meat is mostly deep fried with larger specimens sometimes prepared as part of mixed fish stew or soup.
References
Review of Croatian selected scientific literature on species mostly exploited by the national small-scale fisheries
PDF file on FAOAdriaMed.org
External links
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1549158
Mediterranean sand smelt
Fish of the East Atlantic
Fish of the Mediterranean Sea
Fish of the Black Sea
Fauna of the Canary Islands
Mediterranean sand smelt
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN