Chub mackerel

The chub mackerel, Scomber japonicus, also known as the Pacific mackerel or blue mackerel and sometimes referred to as a "hardhead" or "bullseye", closely resembles the Atlantic mackerel.

Identification

Most important of the differences, anatomically, is the fact that the hardhead has a well-developed swim bladder attached with the esophagus, which the "true mackerels" in the Scomber genus lack. But it is not necessary to open the fish to identify it for there is a characteristic color difference between them, the Atlantic being silvery-sided below the mid line, whereas the lower part of the sides of the hardhead (otherwise colored somewhat like the Atlantic) are mottled with small dusky blotches, and the chub has a larger eye than the Atlantic. Less obvious differences are that the dorsal fins are closer together in the chub and that there are only 9 or 10 spines in its first dorsal fin instead of 11 or more, which is the usual count in the Atlantic mackerel. In most species the mackerel is known to travel in large schools.

Habits

Chub mackerel school like Atlantic mackerel, and their feeding habits are much the same, eating the same species of pelagic crustaceans and Sagittae that the mackerel had taken at the same time and place, while specimens taken at Woods Hole had dieted chiefly on copepods, to a less extent on amphipods, salps, appendicularians, and young herring. They follow thrown bait as readily and bite quite as greedily as Atlantic mackerel do. Their breeding habits have not been studied.

Distribution

Temperate Atlantic Ocean, north to outer Nova Scotia and to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west, to the British Isles in the east. It is represented in the Pacific by a close ally.

Size

This is a smaller fish than its better known relative, growing to a length of about 8 to 14 inches.

References

• USDOI: Fishes of the Gulf of Maine