The Atlantic mackerel (''Scomber scombrus''), also known as Boston mackerel, Norwegian mackerel, Scottish mackerel or just mackerel, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

found in the

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

waters of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

, the Black Sea, and the northern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...

, where it is extremely common and occurs in huge shoals in the

epipelagic zone The photic zone, euphotic zone, epipelagic zone, or sunlight zone is the uppermost layer of a body of water that receives sunlight, allowing phytoplankton to perform photosynthesis. It undergoes a series of physical, chemical, and biological pro ...

down to about . It spends the warmer months close to shore and near the ocean surface, appearing along the coast in spring and departing with the arrival of colder weather in the fall and winter months. During the fall and winter, it migrates out into deeper and more southern water, seeking warmer temperatures. The Atlantic mackerel's body is elongate, steel-blue marked with wavy black lines dorsally and silvery-white ventrally, its snout long and pointed. It possesses two spiny dorsal fins, which are spaced far apart, two pectoral fins, and small caudal and anal fins, also spaced far apart. 4-6 dorsal finlets and 5 anal finlets are typical among members of this species. The fish's body tapers down its length, ending with a large tail fin. Typical size for a mature fish is , but individuals have been caught as large as . The maximum published weight is . Reproduction, which is

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...

, occurs near the shore in the spring and summer, during which a female can produce as many as 450,000 eggs. Juveniles reach sexual maturity at around 2 years of age and can live to be 17. A highly commercial species, the Atlantic mackerel is sought after for its meat, which is strong in flavor and high in oil content and omega-3 fatty acids among other nutrients. Nearly 1 million tonnes of Atlantic mackerel are caught each year globally, the bulk of which is sold fresh, frozen, smoked, or canned. Despite its highly commercial status, the Atlantic mackerel is listed as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

(IUCN) and global catch has remained sustainable.

Taxonomy and phylogeny

The Atlantic mackerel was first described in 1758 by Swedish

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and dis ...

Carl Linnaeus in his

10th edition of Systema Naturae The 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' is a book written by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomencl ...

. Linnaeus gave it the scientific name ''Scomber scomber'' from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''skombros'' meaning "tunny" or "mackerel". Because of its wide distribution, the Atlantic mackerel was independently described 6 more times by 5 different scientists between 1814 and 1863. Its specific name was later changed to ''scombrus'' by B. B. Collette and C. E. Nauen in 1983. It is differentiated from its congeners in a number of ways, the first being the absence of a

swim bladder The swim bladder, gas bladder, fish maw, or air bladder is an internal gas-filled organ that contributes to the ability of many bony fish (but not cartilaginous fish) to control their buoyancy, and thus to stay at their current water depth wi ...

. Its

palatine bone In anatomy, the palatine bones () are two irregular bones of the facial skeleton in many animal species, located above the uvula in the throat. Together with the maxillae, they comprise the hard palate. (''Palate'' is derived from the Latin ''pal ...

is also wider than other members of its genus and its

otolith An otolith ( grc-gre, ὠτο-, ' ear + , ', a stone), also called statoconium or otoconium or statolith, is a calcium carbonate structure in the saccule or utricle of the inner ear, specifically in the vestibular system of vertebrates. The sa ...

is oval-shaped where its congeners' are rectangular. In the eastern Atlantic Ocean there are three stocks differentiated by location and time at which spawning occurs, but studies have not found any distinct genetic differences between these populations. Genetic differences only start to appear at the transatlantic scale, a fact supported by a lack of migration between western and eastern Atlantic populations, whereas eastern Atlantic stocks are known to converge in certain locations like the

Norwegian Sea The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to t ...

and

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegia ...

Description

FMIB 33370 Scombrus; Maguereau; a Mackarel

The Atlantic mackerel has an elongate, fusiform body with a long, pointed snout. The eyes are large and covered by an adipose eyelid, while the teeth are small, sharp, and conical. Scales are also small, with the exceptions of those immediately posterior to the head and around the

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

s. These small scales give the Atlantic mackerel a velvet-like feel. The two

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through co ...

s are large and spaced far apart. The second dorsal fin is typically followed by 5 dorsal finlets, though it can have 4 or 6. The

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as s ...

, which originates slightly behind the second dorsal fin, is similar to it in size and shape and is also succeeded by 5 finlets. The fish's body tapers to a slim

caudal peduncle Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

, the end of the fish to which the short but broad tail fin is attached. Its body is steel-blue

dorsally Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

with wavy black lines running perpendicular to the fish's length. The rest of its body is silvery-white to yellow and may have darker splotches. It can reach sizes of up to and has a common length of . Its maximum published weight is .

Distribution and habitat

The Atlantic mackerel's native range in the western Atlantic extends from

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

, Canada to

Cape Lookout, North Carolina Cape Lookout is the southern point of the Core Banks, one of the natural barrier islands on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina. It delimits Onslow Bay to the west from Raleigh Bay to the east. Core Banks and Shackleford Banks have been desig ...

. In the eastern Atlantic, it can be found from

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and th ...

to as far south as

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامي� ...

. It is also found in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have of ...

, and

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

s. Its

latitudinal In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole ...

range is 70°N- 25°N and its

longitudinal Longitudinal is a geometric term of location which may refer to: * Longitude ** Line of longitude, also called a meridian * Longitudinal engine, an internal combustion engine in which the crankshaft is oriented along the long axis of the vehicle, ...

range is 77°W- 42°E. Its preferred water temperature is above , but Atlantic mackerel are common in waters as cold as and have been found, albeit rarely, in waters. The Atlantic mackerel's common depth range extends from the surface to , but individuals can be found as deep as . Atlantic mackerel are migratory fish, spending the spring and summer closer to shore about out, with juveniles moving closer in to shore than adults. Occasionally, fish will even enter harbors, and those that do are usually juveniles. In the fall and winter they move farther out and farther south to the warmer waters on the edge of the continental shelf. They first come in to land in North America in April at the southern end of their range, but are found along the coast through their entire range by July. They start moving back out to sea again in September and are completely gone from the coast by December. Food availability increases greatly during the summer, and fish reach a peak for fat tissue in August, a mere four months after their lowest point in April.

Biology and ecology

The Atlantic mackerel is an active, fast-moving fish that must keep in constant motion to bring in enough oxygen to survive. It swims using short movements of the rear of its body and the caudal fin. Unlike other mackerel, Atlantic mackerel do not leap out of the water unless attempting to escape a predator. They form large schools, consisting of individuals of the same relative size, near the ocean surface during all seasons but winter. Because larger fish have a greater ratio of muscle mass to surface area, schools of larger fish are able to swim more quickly than schools made up of smaller individuals.

Feeding

When feeding on larger prey, schools tend to break down into shoals and individuals find food on their own. When consuming plankton, however, Atlantic mackerel form tight aggregations, open their mouths as wide as possible, and extend their operculums, swimming in a tightly packed school that acts like a series of miniature tow nets. Spaced only about the diameter of a single fish's mouth apart, this formation greatly reduces the ability of plankton to evade capture, as a plankton darting out of the way of one fish is likely to end up in the jaws of another.

Copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have p ...

s make up the majority of the Atlantic mackerel's diet, ''

Calanus finmarchicus ''Calanus finmarchicus'' is a species of copepods and a part of zooplankton, which is found in enormous amounts in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Distribution and ecology ''Calanus finmarchicus'' is most commonly found in the North Sea and the No ...

'' being the most abundant. Atlantic_mackerel_(Scomber_scombrus)

Life history

Like other mackerels, reproduction in the Atlantic mackerel is oviparous. Spawning occurs day or night in the spring and summer months, primarily within of shore, though it can occur as far out as . A single female can spawn as many as 450,000 eggs in a spawning season. Eggs mature in batches over the course of a week and are

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

once released, remaining within of the surface. Time to hatching is dependent on the water temperature, and ranges from 2 days at to 8.5 days at . Most eggs are spawned in waters in temperature, and as such the majority of eggs hatch in about a week. Eggs are anywhere from in size, trending towards smaller as the spawning season goes on. Larvae undergo three developmental stages: the yolk sac stage, the larval stage, and the post-larval stage. Larvae are when they hatch and feed on the yolk sac for about 5 days. During the larval stage, which lasts about a month, larvae grow to in length. They are largely incapable of swimming, instead floating with the current. During the post-larval stage, which occurs over the next 40 days and during which the fish reaches in length, it swims to the surface at night and down to deeper waters during the day. At the end of the post-larval stage, juveniles resemble an adult mackerel in all but size. Schooling behavior occurs around this time. Sexual maturity is reached at around 2 years of age, though some fish may reproduce a season earlier or a season later. Though some fish are sexually mature at in length, even by only about half of females will be ready to reproduce. At , 90% of fish are capable of reproduction. An Atlantic mackerel can live for up to 17 years and attain a length of and a weight of .

Human interaction

The Atlantic mackerel is of commercial importance to many Atlantic fisheries, which catch it with

purse seine Seine fishing (or seine-haul fishing; ) is a method of fishing that employs a surrounding net, called a seine, that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. Seine nets can be de ...

trawl Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...

s, gill and trammel nets, and trolling lines. Global annual catch is typically in the range of 1 million tonnes, though a 50% spike in 2014 put this number at nearly 1.5 million tonnes. The

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...

and

bring in the most Atlantic mackerel, with annual catches coming in at over 166,000 tonnes and 160,000 tonnes respectively. There are three stocks in the eastern Atlantic: one in the south, one in the west, and another in the

. There are two populations in the Mediterranean, one in the east and one in the west. In the western Atlantic there are two stocks, one in the north and one in the south, for which assessments are, according to the IUCN, "highly uncertain".

As food

Atlantic mackerel outer meat is red meat while inner meat is white, with a strong taste desirable to some consumers. They are sold fresh, frozen, smoked, salted, filleted, or as steaks. The fish is extremely high in oil content,

vitamin B B vitamins are a class of water-soluble vitamins that play important roles in cell metabolism and synthesis of red blood cells. Though these vitamins share similar names (B1, B2, B3, etc.), they are chemically distinct compounds that often coexist ...

selenium Selenium is a chemical element with the symbol Se and atomic number 34. It is a nonmetal (more rarely considered a metalloid) with properties that are intermediate between the elements above and below in the periodic table, sulfur and tellurium ...

, niacin, and

omega 3 Omega−3 fatty acids, also called Omega-3 oils, ω−3 fatty acids or ''n''−3 fatty acids, are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) characterized by the presence of a double bond, three atoms away from the terminal methyl group in their chem ...

, a class of

fatty acid In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, fr ...

s, containing nearly twice as much of the latter per unit weight as

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus ''Oncorhynchus' ...

. Unlike the

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ti ...

and Spanish species, Northern Atlantic mackerel are very low in mercury, and can be eaten at least twice a week according to

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

guidelines.

Conservation

Despite its commercial status, the Atlantic mackerel was assessed to be of Least Concern by the IUCN in 2011. Its abundance and extensive range combined with a cyclical increase/decrease in catch mean that it is not currently in danger of going extinct. The IUCN did recommend careful monitoring, however, especially as the effects of climate change may impact population size and distribution. In the northeastern Atlantic, several countries impose minimum landing sizes. In the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

this size is , Ukraine ,

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, and Canada .

Symbol

The Spanish word for mackerel () is a colloquial demonym for the people of Ceuta, Spain.

References

External links

* *
EDF Report on Mackerel
– Atlantic Mackerel conservation and contamination report {{DEFAULTSORT:mackerel, Atlantic

Atlantic mackerel The Atlantic mackerel (''Scomber scombrus''), also known as Boston mackerel, Norwegian mackerel, Scottish mackerel or just mackerel, is a species of mackerel found in the temperate waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the northern ...

Smoked fish Cold water fish Fish of the North Atlantic