Highfin Kingfish, Menticirrhus nasus
Highfin Kingfish, Menticirrhus nasus. Fish caught from coastal waters off Puertecitos, Baja California, July 2012. Length: 15 cm (5.9 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Eli (obsessiveangling.wordpress.com).
Highfin Kingfish, Menticirrhus nasus. Fish caught from within Magdalena Bay, Baja California Sur, October 2017. Length: 33 cm (13 inches).
The Highfin Kingfish, Menticirrhus nasus, is a member of the Croaker or Sciaenidae Family, that is also known as the Highfin King Croaker and in Mexico as berragato real and chano. Globally, there are nine members in the genus Menticirrhus, of which eight are found in Mexican waters, three in the Atlantic and five in the Pacific Ocean.
The Highfin Kingfish has a slender elongated body with a rounded cross-section and a flat belly. They have an overall grayish silvery white coloration being lighter ventrally. They have faint dark streaks following their scale rows on the back and numerous dark spots on the sides. Their first dorsal fin and pectoral fins are tipped in black; their other fins are dusky. Their head is long with an overhanging conical snout that projects beyond a horizontal mouth that is equipped with villiform teeth and a mid-sized eye. They have a short thick barbel under their chin with a pore at the point and several more at the base. Their anal fin has 1 weak spine and 8 rays; their caudal fin is “S” shaped with a pointed upper lobe; their first dorsal fin has 10 spines with spines 2, 3, and 4 being very long; their second dorsal fin has 1 spine and 21 to 23 rays; and their pectoral fins are large and fan like. They have 4 to 9 short gill rakers. They are covered with small rough scales. Their lateral line extends to the end of the caudal fin.
The Highfin Kingfish is a demersal species that is found in estuaries and nearshore waters at depths up to 146 m (480 feet). They are small in stature, reaching a maximum of 50 cm (20 inches) in length. They feed primarily on benthic invertebrates, including small crustaceans, mollusks and polychaetes. Their chin barbel is used to locate prey on the bottom. The Highfin Kingfish is 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.
The Highfin Kingfish is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean with the exception that they are absent from Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur, northward along the central and northwest coasts of Baja.
The Highfin Kingfish can be confused with the California Corbina, Menticirrhus californiano (uniformly colored black pectoral fins), the Paita Kingfish, Menticirrhus paitensis (7 anal spines, pectoral fins dusky), the Panama Kingfish, Menticirrhus panamensis (small eye; jet black pectoral fins), and the Slender Kingfish, Menticirrhus elongatus (yellow fins).
From a conservation perspective the Highfin Kingfish is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are a target of both artisanal and commercial fishermen with fish being caught with gill nets and trawl nets and as a by-catch of shrimp trawls. Efforts to introduce this species into the Salton Sea in 1950 failed.