The blackbar drum (''Pareques iwamotoi'') 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 marine

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 ...

belonging to the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Pareques ''Pareques'' is a genus of fish of the family Sciaenidae in the order of the Perciformes. Species The species of this genus are: * ''Pareques acuminatus'' (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) * ''Pareques fuscovittatus'' (Kendall & Radcliffe, 1912) * ''P ...

'' in the

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 ...

Sciaenidae Sciaenidae are a family of fish in the order Acanthuriformes. They are commonly called drums or croakers in reference to the repetitive throbbing or drumming sounds they make. The family consists of about 286 to 298 species in about 66 to 70 gen ...

, the drums and croakers. It is found in the western Atlantic Ocean.

Taxonomy

The blackbar drum was first formally described in 1988 by the American

ichthyologists Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of October ...

George C. Miller and Loren P. Woods with its type locality given as at a depth of at Oregon Station 698 () south of

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The genus ''Pareques'' is included in the subfamily Sciaeninae by some authors, but the 5th edition of ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011) is a standard reference for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the ...

'' does not recognise subfamilies within Sciaenidae, which it places in 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 ...

Acanthuriformes Acanthuriformes is an order of ray-finned fishes, part of the Percomorpha clade. Some authorities place the fishes in the order within the Acanthuriformes in the suborders Acanthuroidea and Percoidea of the order Perciformes. Classification The ...

Etymology

The blackbar drum's

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honors

Tomio Iwamoto Tomio is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Tomio can be written using different combinations of kanji characters. Some examples: *富雄, "enrich, masculine" *富男, "enrich, man" *富夫, "enrich, husband" *冨雄, "enrich, m ...

of the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...

, who Miller and Woods described as a "good friend" and who participated in the expedition on which the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

was collected.

Description

The blackbar drum has a deep, rhomboid body with an arched dorsal profile. The head is low, with a moderately large eye and a snout protruding beyond the mouth, with a notched upper jaw which encloses the lower jaw. The

villiform teeth This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes. A B C ...

are arranged in bands with those in the outer row of the lower jaw being enlarged and resembling

canine teeth In mammalian oral anatomy, the canine teeth, also called cuspids, dog teeth, or (in the context of the upper jaw) fangs, eye teeth, vampire teeth, or vampire fangs, are the relatively long, pointed teeth. They can appear more flattened howeve ...

. There are no

barbels In fish anatomy and turtle anatomy, a barbel is a slender, whiskerlike sensory organ near the mouth. Fish that have barbels include the catfish, the carp, the goatfish, the hagfish, the sturgeon, the zebrafish, the black dragonfish and some ...

on the chin but there are five pores and there are ten pores on the snout. The

preoperculum This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes. A B C ...

has weak serrations. The long based dorsal fin has a deep notch separating the spiny and soft-rayed parts with between eight and ten spines before the notch and a single spine and between 37 and 41 soft rays behind it. The spiny part is tall with the sixth spine being the longest. 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 ...

is supported by two spines, the second spine being quite thin, and seven soft rays. The scales of the body are

ctenoid A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as ...

while those on the head are

cycloid In geometry, a cycloid is the curve traced by a point on a circle as it rolls along a straight line without slipping. A cycloid is a specific form of trochoid and is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve ...

, and there are thick coverings of scales on the bases of the soft-rayed part of the dorsal and anal fins. This species has a maximum published

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish ...

of . The overall color is gray with a wide black bar running from the dorsal fin to the

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods. Structure and function Structure In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two en ...

and a thinner dark stripe running horizontally along the flank. The fins are dark. Juveniles are whiter in color with a slender black bar down the middle of the snout and another between the eyes with the same stripes on the body as the adults. As individuals grow larger the pattern of stripes on the body becomes less distinct.

Distribution and habitat

The blackbar drum is found in the western Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina south into 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 ...

, although it is absent from Cuba, and along the Caribbean coast of Central and northern South America from southern Nicaragua to the

Orinoco Delta The Orinoco Delta is a vast river delta of the Orinoco River, located in eastern Venezuela. Location The Orinoco Delta is one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela. It covers the whole of Delta Amacuro State and a few square kilometers of M ...

in Venezuela. It is found at depths between , although young fish may be found in much shallower waters. In the Gulf of Mexico, the habitat of this fish is shallow, coastal waters over sandy, muddy or rocky substrates.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5531844 iwamotoi Fish described in 1988 Fish of the Atlantic Ocean