''Pomadasys argenteus'', the silver grunt, silver javelin, grunter bream, small-spotted grunter-bream, small-spotted javelin fish, trumpeter or white-finned javelin fish, 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 ...

from 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 ...

. This species has a wide

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 ...

distribution. It is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the genus ''

Pomadasys ''Pomadasys'' is a genus of grunts native to the waters of the eastern Atlantic Ocean and through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific coast of the Americas. The name of this genus is a compound of ''poma'' meaning "lid" or "covering" and ''dasys'' m ...

''.

Description

''Pomadasys argenteus'' is a silvery-mauve to pale brown fish fading to silvery-white towards the abdomen, there is occasionally a scattering of dark greyish spots on the back and upper flanks. The snout is dark brown snout, the upper operculum is dark greyish to purplish on its upper part. The

pelvic The pelvis (: pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of an anatomical trunk, between the abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also called bony pelvis or pelvic skeleton). ...

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 are yellow while the dorsal fin has rows of small spots along it. The juveniles have many spots which create a pattern of dark lines along the flanks. It has a blunt snout and a small mouth with brush like bands of teeth on the jaws. 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 ...

has 12 spines and 13-14 soft rays, while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 7 soft rays. This species attains a maximum total length of , although is more typical.

Distribution

Pomadasys argenteus has a wide distribution in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. It occurs from the southern Red Sea, off Saudi Arabia and Yemen east to Vanuatu, north to southern Japan and south to Australia. It is absent from the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

. In Australia they are found from the

Exmouth Gulf Exmouth Gulf is a Bay, gulf in the North West Australia, north-west of Western Australia. It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf, and t ...

in Western Australia across the northern part of the continent to the

Richmond River The Richmond River is a river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may ...

in New South Wales.

Habitat and biology

''Pomadasys argenteus'' occurs in shallow inshore waters, in the vicinity reefs and in estuaries, mangroves too. It has been recorded entering fresh waters in Madagascar and Malaysia. The

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

season runs from the middle of May to early October, females spawn approximately six times in each season. This fish is predatory, preying on

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...

invertebrates such as

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

bivalves Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed by a calcified exoskeleton consis ...

and

polychaetes Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

Systematics

''Pomadasys argenteus'' was first formally described as ''Sciaena argentea'' in 1775 by the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

speaking Finnish

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

and

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 ...

Peter Forsskål (1732-1763), his description was published posthumously by his companion, the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Carsten Niebuhr Carsten Niebuhr, or Karsten Niebuhr (17 March 1733 Cuxhaven, Lüdingworth – 26 April 1815 Meldorf, Dithmarschen), was a German mathematician, Cartography, cartographer, and Geographical exploration, explorer in the service of Denmark-Norway. He ...

(1733-1815). The type locality was given as

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

. When Bernard Germain de Lacėpède (1756-1825) described the

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 ...

''Pomadasys'' in 1802 he used Forsskål's ''Sciaena argentea'' as its

, the genus being considered

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 ...

. The specific name ''argenteus'' means "silver" and refers to the main colour of this species.

Utilisation

Pomadasys argenteus is caught using hook and line, set nets, traps and spears. The catch is mostly sold fresh or salted. 537 to 1,239 tons per year are landed in Malaysia.

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q1042534

argenteus The ''argenteus'' ( ''argentei'', 'of silver') was a silver coin produced by the Roman Empire from the time of Diocletian's coinage reform in AD 294 to ca. AD 310. It was of similar weight and fineness to the denarius of the time of Nero. The coi ...

Fish described in 1775 Taxa named by Peter Forsskål