Oxeye Scad

Interesting Info

• The Oxeye Scad is a schooling fish named for its large, round eyes that seem to bulge compared to its small, streamlined body.
• Adults reach about 22–25 cm (9–10 in) long, making them a small member of the trevally and scad family.
• In Australia it is recorded from tropical northern waters, including Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland.
• Worldwide it has a broad Indo–Pacific range, from the Red Sea and East Africa through India, Southeast Asia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands.
• It has a slender, silvery body with a yellowish tail fin and a dark spot on the upper gill cover.
• They form dense schools near reefs, bays, and sandy coasts, often creating shimmering “fish clouds.”
• Juveniles tend to live in shallow coastal waters and lagoons, while adults move offshore to deeper reefs and open water.
• Their diet includes small crustaceans, plankton, and tiny fishes, which they capture by filter-feeding and snapping at prey in schools.
• Oxeye Scad are active day and night, sometimes moving inshore under cover of darkness to feed.
• Spawning occurs offshore, with eggs drifting in the plankton until hatching into larvae that later settle into shallow nursery grounds.
• They grow quickly but have a short life, usually living only 3–4 years.
• Divers and snorkellers often see them as silvery swarms that shift and ripple together like one giant organism.