Bonitos are a

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

of medium-sized, ray-finned,

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

y fish in the family

Scombridae The mackerel, tuna, and bonito family, Scombridae, includes many of the most important and familiar food fishes. The family consists of 51 species in 15 genera and two subfamilies. All species are in the subfamily Scombrinae, except the but ...

, which it shares with the

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

tuna A tuna (: tunas or 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 bul ...

, and

Spanish mackerel Scomberomorini is a tribe of ray-finned, saltwater, bony fishes that is commonly known as Spanish mackerels, seerfishes, or seer fish. This tribe is a subset of the mackerel family (Scombridae), which it shares with four sister tribes, the tu ...

tribes, and also the butterfly kingfish. Also called the tribe Sardini, it consists of eight

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

across four

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

; three of those four genera are

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

, having a single species each. Bonitos closely resemble the

skipjack tuna The skipjack tuna (''Katsuwonus pelamis'') is a perciform fish in the tuna family, Scombridae, and is the only member of the genus ''Katsuwonus''. It is also known as katsuo, arctic bonito, mushmouth, oceanic bonito, striped tuna or victor fish. ...

, which is often called a bonito, especially in Japanese contexts.

Etymology

The fish's name comes from the Portuguese and Spanish ''bonito'' (no evidence has been found for the origin of the name), identical to the adjective meaning "pretty", but the noun referring to the fish seems to come from the low and medieval Latin form ''boniton'', a word with a strange structure and an obscure origin, related to the word ''byza'', a possible borrowing from the Greek βῦζα, "owl".''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'', 3rd edition, 2018
''s.v.''
/ref>

Species

* Genus '' Sarda'' ( Cuvier, 1832) ** Australian bonito, ''S. australis'' (Macleay, 1881) ** ''S. chiliensis'' (Cuvier, 1832) *** Eastern Pacific bonito, ''S. c. chiliensis'' (Cuvier, 1832) *** Pacific bonito, ''S. c. lineolata'' ( Girard, 1858) ** Striped bonito, ''S. orientalis'' ( Temminck & Schlegel, 1844) ** Atlantic bonito, ''S. sarda'' (

Bloch Bloch is a surname of German origin. Notable people with this surname include: A *Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925), Austrian entrepreneur *Albert Bloch (1882–1961), American painter *Alexandre Bloch (1857–1919), French painter *Alfred Bloch ( ...

, 1793) * Genus '' Cybiosarda'' ( Whitley, 1935) ** Leaping bonito, ''C. elegans'' (Whitley, 1935) * Genus '' Gymnosarda''

Gill A gill () is a respiration organ, respiratory organ that many aquatic ecosystem, aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow r ...

, 1862 **

Dogtooth tuna The dogtooth tuna (''Gymnosarda unicolor''), also known as white tuna, is a species of pelagic marine fish which belongs to the family Scombridae. Despite the name “tuna”, it is not actually a tuna. Instead, it is a bonito. Description The ...

, ''G. unicolor'' ( Rüppell, 1836) * Genus '' Orcynopsis'' Gill, 1862 ** Plain bonito, ''O. unicolor'' (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817)

As food

Pacific and Atlantic bonito meat has a firm texture and a darkish color, as well as a moderate fat content. The meat of young or small bonito can be of light color, close to that of

, and is sometimes used as a cheap substitute for skipjack, especially for canning purposes, and occasionally in the production of cheap varieties of '' katsuobushi'' that are sold as "bonito flakes". Bonito may not, however, be marketed as

in all countries. The Atlantic bonito is also found in the

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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea 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 bound ...

s, where it is a popular food fish, eaten grilled, pickled ('' lakerda''), or baked.

References

{{Taxonbar , from = Q3473576 Scombridae Taxa named by David Starr Jordan Taxa named by Barton Warren Evermann

Etymology

Species

As food

See also

References