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| Common names: scad (English), chincharro (Espanol), jurel (Espanol) |
Trachurus murphyi Nichols, 1920
Elongate, slender, moderately compressed; teeth small, a single row on each jaw; no papillae at front of shoulder at edge of gill chamber; eye with fatty eyelid; gill rakers (excluding rudiments) 15-18 + 42-45; dorsal fin VIII + I, 30-36; anal fin with II isolated spines + I, 27-31; dorsal and anal fins without isolated finlets behind main part of fins; pectoral fins long, reach past origin of anal fin; well developed, vertically expanded scutes (large spiny scales) on both curved and straight parts of lateral line, those on curved part of the lateral line relatively large (61-85% of eye diameter); with an accessory lateral line along top of back under spiny dorsal fin; scales obvious over all of body except just behind pectoral fin.
Back and top of head metallic blue to dark grey; lower body whitish to pale grey; a black spot at the upper edge of the gill cover.
Size: reaches 70 cm, common to 45 cm.
Habitat: an inshore pelagic species.
Depth: 10-300 m.
Southern Ecuador to Chile, Galapagos and Malpelo. Also occurs in New Zealand.
T. symmetricus, which occurs from California to the Gulf of California, is the sister species of T. murphyi. T. symmetricus has smaller scutes (height = 25-44% of eye diameter) on the curved part of the lateral line than does T. murphyi. A recent study by Stepien + Rosenblatt (1996) indicates that are ongoing genetic connections between these two populations.