What kind of fish is a sardine? Get to know this common sea fish
The sardine is also known as the sand mullet, sand-brain pilchard, big-belly pilchard, true pilchard, South American pilchard, and so on. It got its name because it was first caught in Sardinia, Italy. It is found in the isothermal marine regions between 6 and 20 degrees north and south latitude. It is mainly used as food, but the fish meat can also be made into animal feed. Let's take a look together below at what kind of fish the sardine is!
What kind of fish is a sardine?
The sardine is a general term for certain edible fishes of the class Osteichthyes, order Clupeiformes, family Clupeidae, including the genera Sardina, Sardinella, and Sardinops. The body length is about 15 to 30 cm. They live in dense schools, migrate along the coast, and feed on large amounts of plankton. They swim quickly and usually inhabit the middle and upper layers, but in autumn and winter, when the surface water temperature is lower, they inhabit deeper sea areas. Fishing generally uses methods such as light purse seines, drift gillnets, large haul seines, and set nets.
Sardine migratory habits
Sardines are warm-water fish of coastal waters and are generally not seen in the open sea or ocean. In autumn and winter, adult fish live in deep water beyond 70 to 80 m. In spring, as coastal water temperatures rise, schools make spawning migrations toward the shore. After hatching, fry and juvenile fish feed and grow along the coast, and in summer they gradually migrate northward with the warm current of the South China Sea. In autumn, when the surface water temperature drops, they then migrate southward. After October, when the fish have grown to more than 150 mm, they gradually move to deeper sea areas as coastal water temperatures fall.
Sardine producing areas and distribution
1. Genus Sardina: The genus Sardina consists of schooling migratory fish. It is distributed in the northeastern Atlantic and along the Mediterranean coast, and is not produced in China.
2. Genus Sardinops: The Far Eastern sardine is distributed in eastern Honshu, southwestern Kyushu, the Sea of Japan, and the Korea Strait; the California sardine is produced along the coast of California in the United States and western Canada; the South American sardine is produced along the coasts of Chile and Peru in South America; the Australian sardine is produced in Australia and New Zealand; and the South African sardine is distributed along the coasts of southern Africa, Angola, and Namibia.
3. Genus Sardinella: The genus Sardinella has the most species, with more than 20 in total. There are 16 species distributed in the various sea areas of the Indo-West Pacific, such as the long-headed sardine, the goldstripe sardine, and the scaled sardine. There are 3 species in the eastern Pacific, namely the white sardine, the Panama sardine, and the bigeye sardine. There are also 3 species in the western Atlantic, namely the goldstripe sardine, the Brazilian sardine, and the Bermuda sardine. There are 4 species in the eastern Atlantic, namely the goldstripe sardine, the Madeira sardine, the Erba sardine, and the Cameroon sardine.