''Selene setapinnis'', the Atlantic moonfish, is a West Atlantic fish belonging to the family

Carangidae The Carangidae are a family of ray-finned fish which includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, runners, and scads. It is the largest of the six families included within the order Carangiformes. Some authorities classify it as the only family ...

Description

The Atlantic moonfish is a slender, deep bodied fish that is extremely compressed. It has a dorsal fin with 8 spines, and an anal fin with 2 spines. They also have 21 dorsal soft rays and 17 anal soft rays. The upper jaw is short and lower jaw is protruding, extending longer than the upper jaw. They have a sloped, bent forehead and rather large eyes. They have a forked caudal fin that is attached to a large and hard caudal peduncle. The Atlantic moonfish have a faint spot on the base of their pectoral fins. They have a silvery or metallic blue color with a yellowish caudal fin. The dorsal and caudal peduncle regions are lined with a dark edging.

Diet

Adults feed on small fish and crustaceans.

Habitat

Atlantic moonfish can be found in schools at the bottoms of inshore waters. Juveniles can be found on muddy bottoms of brackish waters. Their depth range is 0–55 m, and they prefer subtropical regions.

Distribution

Western Atlantic: Nova Scotia, Canada, along coasts of Gulf of Mexico and South America, Argentina. Replaced by ''Selene dorsalis'' in eastern Atlantic.

Naming and etymology

Selene setapinnis was formally described by the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

ichthyologist 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 Octobe ...

Samuel L. Mitchill Samuel Latham Mitchill (August 20, 1764September 7, 1831) was an American physician, naturalist, and politician who lived in Plandome, New York. Early life Samuel Mitchill was born in Hempstead in the Province of New York, the son of Robert M ...

as ''Zeus setapinnis'' in 1815 with the type locality given as the Bay of New York,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, U.S.A. The generic name ''Selene'' is from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

for "moon", referring to the vague moon-shape of '' S. vomer'' while the

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 ...

is a compound of ''seta'' meaning "bristle" and ''pinnis'' meaning "fin" and refers to the bristle-like points of 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 ...

and 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 ...

References

* “Atlantic Moonfish – Selene Setapinnis.” The Jump. The Jump. 2016. Web. 1 May 2017. * “Atlantic Moonfish.” Virginia Institute of Marine Science. VIMS, 2017. Web. 1 May 2017. * Cervigón, F., 1993. Los peces marinos de Venezuela. Volume 2. Fundación Científica Los Roques, Caracas,Venezuela. 497 p. (Ref. 9626) * "Inland Fishes of New York State". C. Lavett Smith. {{Taxonbar, from=Q649336 setapinnis Fish of the Eastern United States Fish of the Western Atlantic Fish described in 1815 Taxa named by Samuel L. Mitchill