Pareques viola
Rock Croaker
Collection Details
Specimens
Photos
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Perciformes (Perciformes, Also Called the Acanthopteri)
Sciaenidae (Drums and Croakers)
Pareques
Pareques viola (Rock Croaker)
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: fusiform / normal. Body elongate, moderately compressed, and deep, with a strongly arched dorsal profile; snout prominent; mouth small and sub-terminal; lower jaw enclosed by upper; chin with 5 pores but without barbels; edge of preopercle slightly serrate; lower branch of first gill arch with 6 gill rakers; second dorsal fin very long, with 32 to 33 soft rays; body uniformly dark, from purplish bronze to grayish brown; fins dark or blackish (Ref. 55763).
Distribution
Eastern Pacific: throughout Gulf of California south to Peru. Recorded in the Galapagos Islands during the 1982-83 El Niño (Ref. 9405).
Habitat Associations
Marine. reef-associated. Found in: coral reefs.
Biology
Adults are secretive nocturnal fish that hide under ledges by day and come out only at night to feed on the epifauna of the substrate. The adults sometimes form large inactive aggregations in caves, but little or no feeding occurs. Schools of juveniles appear only in the summer.
Max length: 25.0 cm TL; common length: 20.0 cm TL.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2020-01-24. Resilience: High (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: minor commercial; aquarium: public aquariums.
References
Thomson, D.A. (1987) Reef fishes of the Sea of Cortez. The rocky-shore fishes of the Gulf of California. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 302 p.
Chao, L.N. (1995) Sciaenidae. Corvinas, barbiches, bombaches, corvinatas, corvinetas, corvinillas, lambes, pescadillas, roncachos, verrugatos. p. 1427-1518. In W. Fischer, F. Krupp, W. Schneider, C. Sommer, K.E. Carpenter and V. Niem (eds.) Guia FAO para identificacion de especies para los fines de la pesca. Pacifico Centro-oriental. 3 volumes. 1813 p.
Jiménez Prado, P. and P. Béarez (2004) Peces Marinos del Ecuador continental. Tomo 2: Guía de Especies / Marine fishes of continental Ecuador. Volume 2: Species Guide. SIMBIOE/NAZCA/IFEA.
Patzner, R.A. (2008) Reproductive strategies of fish. pp. 311-350. In Rocha, M.J., A. Arukwe and B.G. Kapoor (eds). Fish reproduction: cytology, biology and ecology. Science Publisher, Inc. Oxford. 631 p.
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