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Fish

Atlantic mackerel

Scomber scombrus

Scomber scombrus Linnaeus, 1758 · Scombridae WoRMS 127023

Reference photos

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A fast, streamlined shoaling fish. Strong dark markings cross the back, oblique to near-vertical with relatively little undulation, above an unmarked belly of silver and metallic blue.

Depth

0 to 1000 m, usually the top 200 m

Size

Up to about 60 cm fork length and 3.4 kg, commonly around 30 cm

Habitat

Open water over cold and temperate continental shelves; deeper offshore in winter, closer inshore from spring

Behaviour

Fast swimmer in dense shoals near the surface, feeding mainly by day and making extensive migrations

Diet

I eat

  • Zooplankton, including copepods and euphausiid krill
  • Small shoaling fish, including sandeels, herring and sprat
  • Gelatinous plankton, including hydrozoan jellyfish such as Aglantha digitale

Eats me

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the Irish Sea.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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