The New Zealand sprat (''Sprattus muelleri'') is a

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocea ...

-like, marine fish in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Clupeidae Clupeidae is a family of ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings, shads, sardines, hilsa, and menhadens. The clupeoids include many of the most important food fishes in the world, and are also commonly caught for production ...

found in the subtropical southwest

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

endemic to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It belongs to a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

Sprattus ''Sprattus'' is a genus of small oily fish of the family Clupeidae. They are more usually known by their common name, sprats. There are five species in the genus. Species * '' Sprattus antipodum'' (Hector, 1872) (New Zealand blueback sprat) ...

'' of small

oily fish Oily fish are fish species with oil (fats) in soft tissues and in the coelomic cavity around the gut. Their fillets may contain up to 30% oil, although this figure varies both within and between species. Examples of oily fish include smal ...

, usually known by their

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contra ...

sprat Sprat is the common name applied to a group of forage fish belonging to the genus '' Sprattus'' in the family Clupeidae. The term also is applied to a number of other small sprat-like forage fish ('' Clupeoides'', '' Clupeonella'', '' Corica'' ...

s. Its depth range is from the surface to 110 m, and its length is up to 13 cm.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:New Zealand sprat

New Zealand sprat The New Zealand sprat (''Sprattus muelleri'') is a herring-like, marine fish in the family Clupeidae found in the subtropical southwest Pacific Ocean endemic to New Zealand. It belongs to a genus ''Sprattus'' of small oily fish, usually known b ...

Endemic marine fish of New Zealand Taxa named by Carl Benjamin Klunzinger

See also

References