Crevalle jack facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Crevalle jack |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | |
| Class: | |
| Order: | |
| Suborder: |
Percoidei
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| Superfamily: |
Percoidea
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| Family: |
Carangidae
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| Genus: |
Caranx
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| Species: |
C. hippos
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| Binomial name | |
| Caranx hippos (Linnaeus, 1766)
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Crevalle jack, Caranx hippos, is a fast, saltwater fish that can be found in inland waters along the shoreline of the western Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to Uruguay and the eastern Atlantic from Portugal to Angola. It has a large rounded head with large eyes and a dark silvery body that can show hints of blue-green to green-gold.
They grow to more than three feet in length, though more commonly they are between one and two and a half feet long. The fish usually weighs between 15 to 30 pounds, but a 51 pound Crevalle Jack was taken off the coast of Florida.
Crevalle jacks spawn offshore from early March to early September. When young, they run in large schools, but become solitary as they get older. They are preyed upon by many surface feeding carnivores and seabirds. Crevalle jacks feed during the day and eat a variety of fish and invertebrates. Other common names for common jack are, blacktailed trevally, cabalo, green jack, horse mackerel, horse-eye jack, kingfish, and trevally.
Contents
Habitat
The crevalle jack lives in both inshore and offshore habitats, with larger adults preferring deeper waters than juveniles. In the inshore environment, crevalle jack inhabit shallow flats, sandy bays, beaches, seagrass beds, shallow reef complexes and lagoons. The salinities the species has been reported from range from 0% to 49%, indicating the species can adapt to a wide range of waters.
Diet and feeding
The crevalle jack is a powerful predatory fish which predominantly takes other small fishes as prey at all stages of its life, with various invertebrates generally being of secondary importance to its diet. The widely variable diet of the species throughout its life stages led to authors in the 1950s and 1960s concluding the species was indiscriminate in its feeding habits, eating whatever was locally available.
Images for kids
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Several crevalle jacks over a reef in Florida
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19th century watercolor of a Caranx hippo by Jacques Burkhardt
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Crevalle jacks swimming in the Georgia Aquarium
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A school of crevalle jack swarming around a Caribbean reef shark
See also
In Spanish: Caranx hippos para niños
