Chub mackerel

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Chub mackerel

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Family:	Scombridae
Genus:	Scomber
Species:	S. japonicus

Binomial name

Scomber japonicus
Houttuyn, 1782

The Chub mackerel, Scomber japonicus, also known as pacific mackerel, blue mackerel and sometimes referred to as a "hardhead" or "bullseye", closely resembles the Atlantic mackerel.

Most important of the differences, anatomically, is the fact that the hardhead has a well-developed swim bladder attached with the esophagus, which the "true mackerel" in the Scomber genus lack. But it is not necessary to open the fish to identify it for there is a characteristic color difference between them, the Atlantic being silvery-sided below the mid line. Whereas the lower part of the sides of the hardhead (otherwise colored somewhat like the Atlantic) are mottled with small dusky blotches, and the chub has a larger eye than the Atlantic. Less obvious differences are that the dorsal fins are closer together in the chub and that there are only 9 or 10 spines in its first dorsal fin instead of 11 or more, which is the usual count in the Atlantic mackerel. In most species the mackerel is known to travel in large schools and with around 48 species.

[edit] Habits

Chub mackerel school like Atlantic mackerel, and their feeding habits are much the same, full of the same species of pelagic Crustacea and Sagittae that the mackerel had taken at the same time and place, while specimens taken at Woods Hole had dieted chiefly on copepods, to a less extent on amphipods, Salpae, appendicularians, and young herring. They follow thrown bait as readily and bite quite as greedily as mackerel do. Their breeding habits have not been studied. Temperate Atlantic Ocean, north to outer Nova Scotia and to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west, to England in the east. It is represented in the Pacific by a close ally.