Silverside
Atherinomorus lacunosus
The hardyhead silverside, known by many names including broad-banded silverside and slender hardyhead, is a member of the silverside family Atherinidae. It lives near the surface across the Indo-Pacific and has also spread into the Mediterranean as a Lessepsian migrant through the Suez Canal.
Family
Atherinidae
Avg Size
8-12 cm
Habitat
Its Indo-Pacific range stretches from the east coast of Africa to Tonga, north to southern Japan, and south to northern Australia, though it appears absent from the Andaman Sea and is replaced by Atherinomorus insularum in Hawaii. After the Suez Canal opened in 1869, it became the second Red Sea species, after Pampus argenteus, recorded in the Mediterranean, first noted by Tillier in 1902, and later reached as far as Greece.
Behaviour
This largely nocturnal fish forms large schools along sandy shores and reef margins, from groups of several hundred to aggregations exceeding 100 m (330 ft) long and 20 m (66 ft) wide. It feeds chiefly at night on a wide range of plankton and small bottom-dwelling invertebrates once the schools disperse, and it also enters estuaries. In New Caledonia, individuals mature just before their first year and spawn from late August into December.
