''Conodon nobilis'', the barred grunt, is a species of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

, a

grunt Grunt, grunts or grunting may refer to: Sound and music * Grunting (tennis), in tennis refers to the loud noise, sometimes described as "shrieking" or "screaming", made by some players during their strokes * Death grunt, the death metal singi ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Haemulidae Haemulidae is a family (biology), family of fishes in the order (biology), order Perciformes known commonly as grunts. It is made up of the two subfamily, subfamilies Haemulinae (grunts) and Plectorhynchinae (sweetlips), which contain about 133 ...

. It is found in the Western Atlantic Ocean where it is a target species for some

commercial fisheries Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often p ...

Description

''Conodon nobilis'' has a relatively robust, elongate, laterally compressed body with a large eye. The upper body is brownish, the abdomen is whitish and there are yellowish horizontal lines along the flanks. They normally show 8 wide dark vertical bars on the back. The soft-rayed part of the

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

, the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

and the

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral (belly) surface of fish, and are the lower of the only two sets of paired fins (the other being the laterally positioned pectoral fins). The pelvic fins are homologous to the hi ...

are yellow. The dorsal fin contains 12 spines and 13 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 7 soft rays. This species attains a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , although is more typical.

Distribution

''Conodon nobilis'' is found in the western Atlantic Ocean. Its range extends from northeastern

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

to the upper

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...

and along the coasts of the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

westwards from

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

to the northern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, south through the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

from

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...

Tobago Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger islan ...

. It is also found along the coast of Central and South American from Mexico south to Argentina.

Habitat and ecology

''Conodon nobilis'' is found at depths down to . It occurs largely in sandy coastal areas, although it is also found along rocky shores and in brackish and estuarine waters. It mainly uses the surf zone as a nursery instead of estuaries. It feeds at night, mostly on small fishes and crustaceans, mysids being the most important crustaceans in the diet, with

amphipods Amphipoda () is an order (biology), order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphip ...

also being important. There appears to be a peak of recruitment into the Spring.

Systematics

''Conodon nobilis'' was first formally described in 1758 as ''Perca nobilis'' by Carolus Linnaeus in the 10th edition of the ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

''. The

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...

(1769-1832) described a species he named ''Conodon antillanus'' in 1830, creating a new genus, ''Conodon'', for it. Cuvier's ''C. antillanus'' was later shown to be a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of Linnaeus's ''Perca nobilis'' and, thus, this species is the type species of the genus Conodon. The specific name, ''nobilis'', means "notable", "majestic" or "excellent" but Linnaeus did not explain why he chose this adjective.

Utilisation

''Conodon nobilis'' is a target for the commercial fisheries, the catch being sold fresh. It is also frequently caught as

bycatch Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...

in other fisheries, for example it is commonly caught in the fishery for shrimp off Mexico and Brazil. It is also a quarry for sports fishing and appears in the

aquarium An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

trade. It is caught using seine nets, trawls and hook and line.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2094156 Haemulinae Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Fish of Aruba