The herring family includes about a hundred species of fish that live from the shores of the Arctic to Antarctica itself. Most of them are very popular in cooking and are caught all over the globe. Let's find out which fish belong to the herring family. How are they characterized and how do they differ from other species?
Common traits of the family
The herring family includes ray-finned fish of medium and small sizes. They feed on aquatic plants and microorganisms, mainly as a part of plankton, as well as tiny fish. Very often herring are combined into numerous flocks of hundreds, or even thousands of individuals. So, they provide themselves with protection from predators, because in a group the chances of being eaten are greatly reduced.
Like fish species of the cyprinid family, herring are deprived of fat fins. They have an oval laterally compressed body, painted in gray and bluish shades. The fish tail usually consists of two identical parts, between which there is a deep notch. There is only one fin on the back, the lateral line is absent or has a small length. There are no scales on the head of herring, and in some species it is not even on the body.
Species of the herring fish family: list
They prefer salt water and are inhabitants of the seas and open ocean spaces. However, the herring family also has inhabitants of fresh rivers and lakes, as well as anadromous species that swim in unsalted water bodies exclusively during migrations. Most of them live in the tropics and subtropics, in the cold seas they are much less common.
Many species of herring fish are important objects of fishing and are regularly present on store shelves. The most famous representatives:
- Atlantic herring;
- European sardine;
- pacific herring;
- menhaden atlantic;
- European sprat;
- big-eyed sprat;
- Black Sea-Caspian tyulka;
- eastern ile;
- alasha;
- puss;
- herring;
- Iwashi
- American Shad
- round herring.
Atlantic herring
This herring fish has many names. She is called Murmansk, Norwegian, oceanic, multi-vertebral and, finally, Atlantic. It lives in the northern regions of the Atlantic Ocean, swimming in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the White, Barents and Labrador and other seas.
It is painted a light silver color with a dark green or bluish back. In size, the fish reaches an average of 25 centimeters, individual individuals grow to 40-45 centimeters. It can weigh a maximum of 1 kilogram. The name "multi-vertebral" she received because of the large number of vertebral ridges (55-60 pieces), which distinguishes her from other counterparts. Her palatine teeth are well developed, and her lower jaw is markedly advanced.
In warm seasons, herring is kept close to the surface, not deeper than 200-300 meters, in winter it drops lower into the water column. It represents one of the most common species of the herring family, and marine fish in general. The Atlantic herring is kept in large flocks and feeds mainly on crustaceans, for example, amphipods and calanoids. Sometimes he eats small fish and even his brethren.
Due to the content of various vitamins and polyunsaturated fats, this herring is highly valued in cooking and is a frequent target. As a rule, fish are not thermally processed and are consumed raw, salted, smoked or pickled. However, there are more exotic recipes in which it is fried, baked and even boiled.
Salaka
Salaka, or Baltic herring, is considered a subspecies of the Atlantic herring. It lives in the Baltic Sea, as well as in nearby salted and fresh water bodies, such as the Curonian and Kaliningrad gulf. Fish is also found in some lakes in Sweden.
She has an elongated body, a small rounded head and a slightly rounded belly. At the age of two to four years, the fish reaches 15-16 centimeters in length, and by the end of life can grow up to 20 centimeters. There are also larger representatives, which are often considered a separate subspecies and are called giant herring. They can even reach 40 centimeters in length and eat small fish such as sticklebacks, while small herring use only plankton. In the waters of the Baltic Sea, they have several competitors who also belong to the herring family. These are sprats and sprats, the food of which also includes plankton from copepod cladocerans.
Salaka is actively used in the food industry. They catch it throughout the year. Fish is suitable for salting, smoking, frying and baking. Canned foods and preserves under the names “sprats in oil” or “anchovies” are often made from it.
Far Eastern Sardine
Iwashi, or Far Eastern sardine, is a valuable commercial fish of the herring family. It belongs to the genus Sardinops and is similar to the Californian and South American sardines. The body of the fish is very elongated. Her abdomen is painted a light silver color, and her back is very dark and has a blue tint. The transition between the two colors is indicated by a thin blue stripe with black spots along it.
The size of the fish usually does not exceed 20-30 centimeters. At the same time, its weight is only 100-150 grams. She has a thin tail with a deep indentation in the middle. At the end, it is painted in a dark, almost black color.
Sardine loves warmth and is held in the upper layers of water. It gathers in large jambs, the length of which can reach 40 meters. This fish lives in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and is found off the coast of the Far East of Russia, Japan and Korea. In warm periods it can reach Kamchatka and the northern tip of Sakhalin. Sardine does not tolerate a sharp drop in temperature. Sudden cooling by 5-6 degrees can lead to mass death of fish.
The Far Eastern sardine is divided into two subtypes, which differ in places and periods of spawning. The southern subtype spawns near the Japanese island of Kyushu, sailing to it in December-January. Northern sardines begin spawning in March, sailing to the shores of Honshu Island and the Korean Peninsula.
Atlantic menhaden
Atlantic Menhaden is a medium-sized fish. Adult individuals, as a rule, reach a length of 20-32 centimeters, but some individuals can grow up to 50 centimeters. Menhaden has a large head and higher flanks than herring and sardine. The color of the fish is light from below and dark in the area of the back. The sides are covered with small, unevenly distributed scales. Behind the gill cover there is a large black spot, and behind it six more rows of small spots.
In our area, Menhaden is not the most famous representative of the herring family. It lives in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North America. Approximately 90% of the total captured volume of this fish is in the United States. His usual diet consists of plankton, algae and small copepods. Menhaden itself often becomes the prey of whales, waterfowl and pollock.
In winter, the fish stays in the open ocean, not plunging to a depth below 50 meters. With the advent of the warm season, it moves towards the coast, often swimming in closed bodies of water. Menhaden is not found in fresh waters, but can live in slightly salted. In summer, fish swim in the shelf area, in deltas and near estuaries.
This very oily and nutritious fish is a valuable commercial species. However, catching her is not easy. To do this, you need to consider a lot of factors associated with the movement and speed of sea currents, wind direction and other external factors.
Black Sea-Caspian Tulk
Tulka is a genus of small fish of the herring family that live in fresh and brackish water bodies. The Black Sea-Caspian sprat, or sausage, grows on average up to 7-8 centimeters, and the maximum sizes reach 15 centimeters. In this case, puberty of fish occurs when the length of its body reaches 5 centimeters. Due to its miniature size, it becomes the prey of even medium-sized species. Flounders, zander and other representatives of the herring family prey on her. Tulk itself feeds exclusively on plankton.
The tulle is painted in silver or golden yellow, and its back has a greenish or blue tint. The fish lives in the Black, Caspian and Azov seas, swimming in the water column. During spawning, she visits low-salt areas of the seas, enters their estuaries, as well as the Dnieper and Danube.
Migration towards the main places for spawning takes place in April-May. During such seasonal movements, fish are usually caught. It is used in salted, smoked and dried form, and also used in agricultural products.
European sprat
Sprat is a small commercial fish of the herring family, painted in silver-gray shades. In size, it is usually slightly larger than tyulka and reaches puberty only when it grows to 12 centimeters in length. The maximum size of the fish is 15-16 centimeters. The spawning time of fish falls on the spring-summer period. Then it moves away from the coast and throws eggs directly into the sea to a depth of 50 meters. Like other small fish of the herring family, it feeds on plankton and fry.
European sprat, or sprat, includes three subspecies: northern (seas of Western and Southern Europe), Black Sea (Adriatic and the Black Sea) and Baltic (Riga and Finnish bays of the Baltic Sea). Canned fish with butter is very tasty and is popular at the festive table. For such preparation, the Baltic subspecies are usually used - it is larger and fatter than the rest. Pate is usually made from Black Sea sprat or salted whole. In wildlife, it is a valuable source of energy for dolphins, beluga and large fish.
Alasha
Alasha, or sardinella, is a medium-sized fish that lives in warm tropical and subtropical waters. It inhabits the waters of the Atlantic - from the shores of Gibraltar to the Republic of South Africa, from the state of Massachusetts in the USA to the coast of Argentina. The fish lives in the Caribbean, near the Bahamas and the Antilles. Because of this, it is also called tropical sardine.
Alasha’s sides and belly are golden yellow and her back has a green tint. Outwardly, this fish of the herring family resembles an ordinary European sardine, differing from it by a more elongated body and a convex belly. On average, it grows to 25–35 centimeters long. She reaches the maximum size at the age of five, and already in the first or second year of her life, puberty sets in.
Sardinella feeds on plankton and stays in the upper layers of the ocean. Usually it floats at a depth of 50-80 meters, but from time to time it can drop to 350 meters. Thanks to living in warm reservoirs, she does not wait for the onset of spring, but spawns all year round. Fish lays eggs in shallow waters of lagoons and river estuaries, where fry develop later.
American shad
The American or Atlantic shad is one of the largest marine fish of the herring family. On average, it grows to 40-50 centimeters. However, the maximum length of the caught fish reached 76 centimeters, and its weight was about five kilograms. The shad is painted a light silver color with a dark blue tint in the back. His body is flattened from the sides and stretched forward, and the belly is slightly convex and round. Behind the gills there is a series of black dots, decreasing in size as they move away towards the tail.
The original homeland of the shad was the waters of the Atlantic from Newfoundland Island to the Florida Peninsula. Over time, it was successfully acclimatized off the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, as well as in some rivers of North America. But the shad does not live in fresh water. There, it is a passage and appears only in the spawning season from March to May. The rest of the time the fish lives in the salty waters of the seas and oceans.
Despite the impressive size of the shad, the basis of its diet is plankton, small crustaceans and fry. In rivers, it can feed on the larvae of various insects. Fish spawning occurs after reaching the age of four years. In spring, females go to shallow water and release up to 600 thousand eggs without attaching them to any substrate. Inhabitants of the more southern regions usually die immediately after spawning. Fishes in the northern part of the range, on the contrary, return to the open sea in order to produce new offspring next year.
Eastern niche
Another tropical representative of the family is herring. It lives in the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific Ocean and is found mainly in the Yellow, Java and East China Seas. She calmly tolerates low salinity, so spawning often swims in shallow water near the estuaries. In order to lay eggs, the niche is knocked down into large flocks and migrates already in the group. After spawning, the schools disappear, and the fish, one by one, sail away from the coast.
Ilisha refers to large types of herring: the maximum size can be 60 centimeters. She has a relatively small head with a protruding lower jaw. The body of the fish is painted in gray-silver color with a dark back and a dark fringing of the caudal fins. It also has a dark gray spot on a single dorsal fin.
Chubby herring
The genus of round-bellied fish includes about ten species of fish of small and medium sizes. All of them live in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They differ from other members of the family by a spindle-shaped rounded body and the absence of keel scales on the belly. These are popular commercial fish that are caught for salting and cooking canned food. They are also eaten fried and boiled.
Ordinary round-bellied fish live in the northwestern Atlantic from Fundy Bay off the coast of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Like most herring, they approach shallow water only in the spring and summer, and with a cooling return to the open sea. They stay close to the surface and feed mainly on zooplankton.
Round bellies grow up to 33 centimeters in length. At the age of two years, when puberty occurs in fish, they reach a length of 15-17 centimeters. Interestingly, the females begin to spawn in the winter. Therefore, in the summer, when the water gets warmer, not only adults, but also slightly grown fry swim up to the shores. They swim at a depth of 20-40 meters, not dropping below. Fish live for about 6 years.
