Herring Family – Clupeidae

There are currently SEVENTEEN members of the Herring or Clupeidae Family, that includes eleven herrings, three sardines, and two shads, with six fish from the Atlantic Ocean, ten from the Pacific Ocean and one that occurs in Mexican waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, presented in this website:

FROM THE ATLANTIC (6):

FROM THE PACIFIC (10):

FROM THE ATLANTIC AND THE PACIFIC (1):

The fish of the Herring or Clupeidae Family are known in Mexico’s fishing areas as sardinas. The family includes the herrings, hilsa, menhadens, sardines, and shads. Globally the Herring family includes one hundred and ninty-eight species that have placed in fifty-four genera with twenty-three being found in Mexican waters, eleven in the Atlantic, eleven in the Pacific and one in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Herrings are found globally, with most being part of small coastal schools in tropical marine waters.

Herrings range in length from 2.0 cm (0.8 inches) to 75 cm (30 inches). Their bodies are fusiform and built for quick, evasive swimming; they vary greatly in shape from round to strongly compressed and from thin to deep. They are normally silvery blue-green dorsally and silvery on their flanks; many have darker markings including spots behind their gill covers. They have a terminal mouth that opens at the front, ends before the eyes, is short but deep, and has either small teeth or no teeth. Their fins have no spines. Their anal fin is well back on the body with a short base and 12 to 29 rays; their caudal fin is deeply forked; their dorsal fin is a single that is small and near the mid-point of the body; their pectoral fins are set low on the body; and, their pelvic fins are located under the dorsal fin base at equi-distance between the anal fin origin and the pectoral fin base. They have scuted keels along their abdomen and their lateral lines are either very short or non-existent. Their head is scaleless and their body is covered with smooth uniform scales.

Adults typically live in large shoals consisting of hundreds to thousands of individuals for protection against predation from birds, other predatory fish, sharks, whales, marine mammals, and jellyfish. They are known to form bait balls for protection. They consume zooplankton and small planktonic animals, but mainly crustaceans. Females produce up to 200,000 pelagic eggs annually, which remain near the ocean surface and are capable of standing on their own. The Herrings are poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

Herrings play an essential role at the lower end of the food chain for the majority of marine fish and mammals. Many family members are important food fish comprising 50% of annual global fish catches. Commercially important species include the Atlantic Herring, Clupea harengus, the Atlantic Menhaden, Brevoortia tyrannus, the Gulf Menhaden, Brevoortia patronus, the Pacific Herring, Clupea pallasii, and the Spanish Sardine, Sardinella aurita. They are also used extensively to produce fish oil and fish meal. Some are excellent bait fish. They date to the early Paleogene period, 23 million to 66 million years ago.