The fringefin trevally (''Pantolabus radiatus''), also called fringe-finned trevally, round-finned trevally or reef herring, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of inshore marine

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

classified in the jack and horse mackerel

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 ...

Carangidae The Carangidae are a family of ray-finned fish that includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, runners, trevallies, and scads. It is the largest of the six families included within the order Carangiformes. Some authorities classify it as the ...

. A relatively small fish, the fringefin trevally is known to reach , but is mostly encountered at lengths less than . The fringefin trevally has an ovate body, with distinctive orange-yellow

fin A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. F ...

s and a black opercular spot. The dental patterns of the species distinguish it from the closely related scads of the genus ''

Alepes ''Alepes'' is a genus containing five extant species of tropical ocean, marine fishes in the jack family, Carangidae. They are commonly known as scads, a term applied to many genera of carangid fishes. Their body form, however, differs from these ...

''. Males have characteristic elongated

dorsal Dorsal (from Latin ''dorsum'' ‘back’) may refer to: * Dorsal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location referring to the back or upper side of an organism or parts of an organism * Dorsal, positioned on top of an aircraft's fuselage The fus ...

and

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 ...

s which produce a series of trailing filaments. The fringefin trevally is restricted to the waters of the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, ranging from northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

and eastern

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. An inshore species, it is found in coastal and

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

environments and exhibits daily and seasonal movements. The fringefin trevally is

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

y, taking

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s as prey. The species is often taken as bycatch in prawn

trawl Trawling is an industrial 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 di ...

s and occasionally taken by anglers.

Taxonomy and naming

The fringefin trevally is the only member of the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Pantolabus'', one of around 30 genera in the jack and horse mackerel family

, which in turn is part of the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Carangiformes Carangiformes is a large, diverse order of ray-finned fishes within the clade Percomorpha. It is part of a sister clade to the Ovalentaria, alongside its sister group, the Anabantaria (including Anabantiformes and Synbranchiformes). The Cara ...

. The fringefin trevally was

scientifically described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it diffe ...

by the Australian

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

William Macleay in 1881 based on the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

specimen taken in

Rockingham Bay Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia. The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a small ...

Queensland, Australia Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, ...

. He named the species ''Caranx radiatus'', with the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word for 'radiating' in reference to the elongated fin filaments. Two years later in 1883, Macleay unknowingly redescribed the same species as ''Caranx compressus'', again from a Queensland-caught specimen. The American

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

Samuel Garman Samuel Walton Garman (June 5, 1843 – September 30, 1927), or "Garmann" as he sometimes styled himself, was an American naturalist and zoologist. He became noted as an ichthyologist and herpetologist. Biography Garman was born in Indiana Co ...

also redescribed the species as ''Caranx parasitus'' in 1903. These later names are considered

junior synonym In taxonomy, the scientific classification of living organisms, a synonym is an alternative scientific name for the accepted scientific name of a taxon. The botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. ...

s under

ICZN The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its formal author, t ...

rules and considered invalid. The current generic name arose after the Australian ichthyologist

Gilbert Whitley Gilbert Percy Whitley (9 June 1903 – 18 July 1975) was a British-born Australian Ichthyology, ichthyologist and malacologist who was curator of fishes at the Australian Museum in Sydney for about 40 years. Early life and education Gilbert Per ...

examined Garman's ''Caranx parasitus'' and concluded it warranted placement in a separate genus with close affinity to the genus ''

''. He named the genus ''Pantolabus''; in his description he gives no explanation of the

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

, but it likely is derived from a Latin name for men, most notably the character of the same name in

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

's ''

Satires Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or ...

''. In 1937, Whitley also revised ''Caranx radiatus'', placing it a separate new genus; ''Absalom''. Further revisions recognised the priority of ''Caranx radiatus'' as the first description and agreed with the placement in a monotypic genus. Since Whitley's ''Pantolabus'' came first, it had priority, creating the currently accepted name of ''Pantolabus radiatus''. The species is commonly referred to as the fringefin or fringe-finned trevally in reference to the elongated dorsal and anal fin lobes. Other less commonly used names include round-finned trevally and reef herring. The fringefin trevally was included in a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

study based upon morphological characteristics by Soko Gushiken. This found the species to be most closely related to the scad genus ''Alepes'', included in a larger

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

grouping of scads and horse mackerels as part of the subfamily Caranginae.

Description

The fringefin trevally is a relatively small species of carangid: reaching a maximum recorded length of , it is more commonly encountered at lengths less than 25 cm. The species has an oval-shaped body with the

and

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

profiles equally convex. The fringefin trevally's

dentition Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiology ...

is one of the features that allows it to be distinguished from the scads of the genus ''Alepes'', having a single row of moderately enlarged, conical teeth on the lower jaw and an outer row of conical teeth on the upper jaw bordered by inner bands of small, but not villiform, sharply pointed teeth. A well developed

adipose Adipose tissue (also known as body fat or simply fat) is a loose connective tissue composed mostly of adipocytes. It also contains the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of cells including preadipocytes, fibroblasts, Blood vessel, vascular endothel ...

eyelid is present on the posterior half of the eye, similar to the members of ''Alepes''. 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 ...

is in two parts; the first having eight spines and the second one spine and 20 to 26

soft rays Fish anatomy is the study of the form or morphology of fish. It can be contrasted with fish physiology, which is the study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. In practice, fish anatomy and fish physiology co ...

. The

has two detached spines followed by 18 to 20 soft rays. The males of the species have all their soft dorsal and anal fins extended into distinctive filaments, with the longest filaments at the front of the second dorsal fin. The second dorsal and anal fins of both sexes have a scaly basal sheath. The

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

has a moderate anterior arch, with 33 to 41

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

in the curved section and no to 9 scales and 38 to 49

scute A scute () or scutum (Latin: ''scutum''; plural: ''scuta'' "Scutum (shield), shield") is a bony external plate or scale overlaid with horn, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, and the feet of Bird anatomy#Scales, birds. The ter ...

s on the straight section. It has 36 to 41

gill raker Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of th ...

s in total and 24

vertebrae Each vertebra (: vertebrae) is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, that make up the vertebral column or spine, of vertebrates. The proportions of the vertebrae differ according to their spinal ...

. The fringefin trevally is an olive-green to bluish-green colour above, grading to a silvery-white below. A large black spot about the same size as the eye is present on the operculum. The dorsal, anal, and

caudal 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 only ...

s are all a distinctive orange-yellow colour, with the caudal fin having also having a black upper lobe. The

pectoral fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish aquatic locomotion, swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the vertebral column ...

s are pale orange to

hyaline A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from , and . Histopathology Hyaline cartilage is named after its glassy appearance on fresh gross pathology. On light microscopy of H&E stained slides, the extracellula ...

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 ...

s are white.

Distribution and habitat

The fringefin trevally is distributed through a small area of the

, ranging from northern

and West Papua in

. Around Australia, the species is known from

Port Hedland A port is a maritime law, maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inla ...

in Western Australian around to

Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party. In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...

in Queensland. The fringefin trevally is predominantly an inshore species, rarely found in waters greater than 30 m deep. The species commonly enters

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

, but is restricted to the lower reaches of these environments. Studies in northern Australia suggest the species prefer turbid waters, with trawl catches increasing in more turbid waters. Fringefin trevally have also been recorded over seagrass habitats.

Biology and fishery

Little is known of the fringefin trevally, with only a handful of studies in northern Australia recording aspects of its

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

. These focused predominantly on abundance, movements, and

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s of a variety of species. The species was found to be more abundant in

catches during the night and on

neap tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

s. On a longer-term scale, the fringefin trevally was present in the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

study area from January to August before moving out of the catch area. The species does not appear to change habitat with age, with individuals of various stages of their lives found in estuarine, inshore, and shelf environments. The fringefin trevally is a

, feeding on

epibenthic Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s. The fringefin trevally is not a commercially targeted species, but still makes up a small percentage of the northern Australian prawn trawls. They are occasionally taken by anglers on bait or small lures and considered to be mediocre

table fish Many species of fish are caught by humans and consumed as food in virtually all regions around the world. Their meat has been an important dietary source of protein and other nutrients in the human diet. The English language does not have a sp ...

References

External links

Fringefin trevally (''Pantolabus radiatus'')
a
FishBaseFringefin trevally (''Pantolabus radiatus'')
a
Australian Museum
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2269558 fringefin trevally fringefin trevally