No photo available
Silver-stripe round herring (silver sprat)
Spratelloides gracilis
Valid name.
- English
- Silver-stripe round herring (silver sprat)
- Scientific
- Spratelloides gracilis
- Dhivehi
- ރެހިRehi
- Group
- Baitfish
- Maximum size
- About 10 cm
- Depth and habitat
- Lagoons and reef edges near the surface, to about 40 m
- IUCN status
- LC · Least ConcernLeast Concern (LC), assessed 2017
Description
A tiny, slender, translucent fish with a broad silver stripe along each side. It lives in dense schools in lagoons and around reefs, feeding on zooplankton. It is short-lived, maturing within months, so populations turn over quickly. Large schools are a major food source for reef predators and seabirds.
In the Maldives
One of the key live-bait fish for the Maldivian pole-and-line tuna fishery: caught inside the atolls at dawn and carried live in the boat's bait wells to chum tuna schools.
Sources
- fishbase.se /summary/Spratelloides-gracilis.html
- fao.org /4/AD471E/AD471E00.htm
- dv.wikipedia.org /wiki/ރެހި
- commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Spratelloides_gracilis.jpg
Dhivehi name source: M.R.S. (1997) Fishes of the Maldives, Marine Research Section, Malé (FAO/BOBP MAG/21); Thaana from Dhivehi Wikipedia (fish articles derived from the MRS 1997 Dhivehi edition).