Sardine

sardine: see herring.

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sardine

Any of certain species of small (6–12 in., or 15–30 cm, long) food fishes of the herring family (Clupeidae), especially in the genera Sardina, Sardinops, and Sardinella. The common herring (Clupea harengus) is found throughout the North Atlantic. The five species of Sardinops live in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Sardines are small, silvery, slender fishes with a single short dorsal fin and no scales on the head. They live in dense schools, migrating along the coast. They are usually fished with an encircling net, particularly the purse seine, and mainly at night, when they surface to feed on plankton. See also pilchard, sprat.

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sardine

any of various small marine food fishes of the herring family, esp a young pilchard

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sardine [sär′dēn]

(mineralogy)

sard

(vertebrate zoology)

Sardina pilchardus.The young of the pilchard, a herringlike fish in the family Clupeidae found in the Atlantic along the European coasts.

The young of any of various similar and related forms which are processed and eaten as sardines.

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Sardine 

any one fish belonging to the genus Sardina, Sardinella, or Sardinops of the family Clupeidae. Sardines are usually less than 25 cm long and weigh 100–150 g. They are pelagic fishes that form schools and feed on plankton. Sardines inhabit subtropical and tropical littoral waters of the world ocean. The fishes attain sexual maturity in two or three years and have a life-span of five to seven years. Spawning is fractional, occurring in the spring and summer. The roe are pelagic.

Sardines are most numerous off the northwestern coast (Sardinella) and southwestern coast (Sardinops) of Africa. Of particular commercial value in the 1930’s were the California sardine (Sardinops caerulea), which lives off the coast of California, and the Far-East pilchard (Sardinops sagax melanosticta), which inhabits the Sea of Japan. Sardines of the genus Sardina are distributed off the southwestern coast of Europe; occasionally they are encountered in the Black Sea.

Sardines are canned. A substantial amount of the catch is used to make feed meal for domestic animals.

REFERENCES

Svetovidov, A. N. Sel’devye (Clupeidae). Moscow-Leningrad, 1952. (Fauna SSSR: Ryby, vol. 2, issue 1.)
Zhizn’ zhivotnykh, vol. 4, part 1. Moscow, 1971.