Snouted Mullet, Chaenomugil proboscideus

Snouted Mullet, Chaenomugil proboscideus, Juvenile. Fish collected from a tidal pool at 6 miles north of Puerto Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, September 2005. Length: 1.3 cm (0.5 inch).

Snouted Mullet, Chaenomugil proboscideus, Juvenile. Fish collected from a tidal pool at 6 miles north of Puerto Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, September 2005. Length: 10 cm (3.9 inches). Identification courtesy of H.J. Walker, Jr., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California.

The Snouted Mullet, Chaenomugil proboscideus, is a very rare member of the Mullet or Mugilidae Family, and is known in Mexico as lisa hocicona. Globally, there are two species in the genus Chaenomugil, with one being found in Mexican waters, this species from the Pacific Ocean.

 The Snouted Mullet has an elongated deep fusiform body with a depth that is 30% to 32% of standard length. They are green to olive dorsally, silvery on their sides, and white ventrally. They have faint brown stripes along their scale rows. Their pelvic fins are transparent and their other fins are dusky. Their head is broad, slightly wider than deep, and 23% to 25% of standard length. They have a blunt nose and a small terminal oblique mouth with thick lips. They lack the knob at the tip of their lower lip and the prominent well-developed fatty eyelids with a small slit over the pupil found in other Mullets. Their anal fin has 3 spines and 10 rays; their caudal fin is weakly forked; their 2 short dorsal fins are widely spaced; and, their pectoral fins do not reach the dorsal fin origin. Their body is covered with large scales. They do not have a lateral line.

The Snouted Mullet is found along rocky shorelines and adjacent tidal pools at depths up to 46 m (150 feet). They are smaller than most mullets reaching a maximum 22.0 cm (8.7 inches) in length. They feed primarily on algae, zooplankton, and dead plant matter making them an important ecological waste processing machine. They are preyed upon by fish, birds, and various other marine mammals. Reproduction is oviparous with females laying eggs that are fertilized externally by males. The eggs are pelagic and non-adhesive. The Snouted Mullet 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 Snouted Mullet is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Pacific with the exception that they are absent from the northern two-thirds of the Sea of Cortez and from Magdalena Bay, Baja California Sur, northward along the central and northwest coasts of Baja.

Due to its fusiform body, the Snouted Mullet cannot be easily confused with any other species.

From a conservation perspective the Snouted Mullet is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are exceedingly rare, seldom seen by humans, and of limited interest to most.