Stellifer stellifer
No common name
Collection Details
Specimens
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Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Perciformes (Perciformes, Also Called the Acanthopteri)
Sciaenidae (Drums and Croakers)
Stellifer
Stellifer stellifer
Description
This species account was compiled from
Composite (multiple sources) (Carpenter, K.E. (ed.) 2002. The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes. FAO, Rome.)
and processed using AI-assisted text extraction.
It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting.
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Synonymy
Stellifer mindii Meek and Hildebrand, 1925 / often confused with
other species of Stellifer.
Characters
A sm all fish, body oblong and moderately compressed. Head deep, interorbital
broad and cavernous, spongy to touch. Mouth large, oblique, and terminal; maxilla reaching below hind
margin of eye. Teeth villi form, set in narrow b ands on jaws, outer row of upper jaw and inner row of lower jaw
slightly enlarged. Chin without barbel but with 6 mental pores; snout with 8 pores (3 rostral and 5 marginal).
Gill rakers 33 to 39, long and slender. Preopercle margin with 3 distinct spines at angle. Spinous dorsal fin
with 10 or 11 spines, posterior portion with 1 or 2 spines (r arely 3), 17 to 20 soft rays; anal fin with 2 spines
and 8 (r arely 9) soft rays, second spine long and strong, near height of first ray; caudal fin long and point-
edly rhomboidal. Gas bladder with 2 chambers, anterior one yoke-shaped with a pair of short,
pear-shaped appendages, posterior chamber carrot-shaped; drumming muscle present only in males;
peritoneal membrane silvery. Lapillus enlarged, about same size as sagitta. Scales ctenoid (comb-like)
on body, cycloid (smooth) on head and breast; soft dorsal fin with 2 or 3 rows of sm all scales along its base and
heavily invested with fine scales on membranes between soft rays over 2/3 of fin height. Colour: body silvery
gray, darker above; upper third of spinous dorsal, pectoral, and anal fins dusky often with dark tip, pelvic fins
pale to yellowish; inner side of gill c over and roof of mouth pale.
Body shape: fusiform / normal.
Distribution
Along Caribbean and Atlantic
coasts of South America from Panama to
sou theast Brazil; also in Trinidad and Tobago.
Habitat Associations
Most abundant
in warm inshore waters and over muddy or s andy
bottoms. Feeds mainly on sm all planktonic crus-
taceans and fishes. Mature females found in Au-
gust. No specific fishery but common in
bycatches from bottom trawls and artisan beach
seines off Guyana and nor theast Brazil.
Biology
Maximum: 20 cm; common to 12 cm.
Found over shallow, muddy or sandy mud bottoms of estuaries and its adjacent areas.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Data Deficient (DD), assessed 2020-01-28. Resilience: High (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: bycatch.
References
Cervigón, F. (1993) Los peces marinos de Venezuela. Volume 2. Fundación Científica Los Roques, Caracas,Venezuela. 497 p.
Gines, H. and F. Cervigón (1967) Exploracion pesquera en las costas de Guyana y Surinam año 1967. Estacíon de Investigaciones Marinas de Margarita. Fundacíon La Salle de Ciencias Naturales, no. 29.
Joyeux, J.-C., T. Giarrizzo, R.M. Macieira, H.L. Spach and T. Vaske Jr. (2008) Length-weight relationships for Brazilian estaurine fishes along a latitudinal gradient. J. Appl. Ichthyol. 24(1):1-6.
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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