Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) > Clupeiformes
(Herrings) > Clupeidae
(Herrings, shads, sardines, menhadens) > Dorosomatinae
Etymology: Sardinella: Latin and Greek, sarda = sardine; name related to the island of Sardinia; diminutive (Ref. 45335).
Environment / Climate / Range
Marine; pelagic-neritic; amphidromous (Ref. 51243); depth range 0 - 50 m (Ref. 188). Tropical; 26°N - 23°S, 37°E - 179°W (Ref. 188)
Size / Weight / Age
Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm
Max length : 15.2 cm SL male/unsexed; (Ref. 54980); common length : 10.0 cm SL male/unsexed; (Ref. 188)
soft rays: 12 - 23. Body depth usually not much more than 30% of standard length; scutes 27 to 31. The jet black caudal tips distinguish S. melanura from all other species of Sardinella except S. atricauda (scutes 32 to 35), S. hualiensis (dark spot at dorsal fin origin, scales fimbriated and with small perforations) and S. fijiense (gill rakers 87 to 134).
Indo-West Pacific: Gulf of Aden south to Madagascar and Mauritius and east to the Arabian Sea and northwestern India (apparently not found south of Bombay nor in northern Bay of Bengal); then from Indonesia (but not in South China Sea) to Samoa. Reported from the Penghu Islands (Ref. 55073).
Form schools in coastal waters (Ref. 188, 75154). Regarded a robust and very good bait in the tuna fishery.
Life cycle and mating behavior
Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae
Whitehead, P.J.P., 1985. FAO Species Catalogue. Vol. 7. Clupeoid fishes of the world (suborder Clupeioidei). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of the herrings, sardines, pilchards, sprats, shads, anchovies and wolf-herrings. FAO Fish. Synop. 125(7/1):1-303. Rome: FAO. (Ref. 188)
IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 96402)
CITES (Ref. 94142)
Threat to humans
Fisheries: minor commercial; bait: usually
Common namesSynonymsMetabolismPredatorsEcotoxicologyReproductionMaturitySpawningFecundityEggsEgg development
ReferencesAquacultureAquaculture profileStrainsGeneticsAllele frequenciesHeritabilityDiseasesProcessingMass conversion
Estimates of some properties based on models
Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82805
= 0.5000 [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Bayesian length-weight: a=0.01349 (0.00851 - 0.02138), b=3.03 (2.90 - 3.16), based on LWR estimates for species & Genus-body shape (Ref. 93245
Trophic Level (Ref. 69278
): 2.9 ±0.3 se; Based on size and trophs of closest relatives
Resilience (Ref. 69278
): High, minimum population doubling time less than 15 months (tmax=4; k >0.7).
Vulnerability (Ref. 59153
): Low vulnerability (20 of 100) .