Atlantic scombrops (Scombrops oculatus) is a saltwater species recorded in the United States. It is found at depths of 200–610 m.
Scientific name: Scombrops oculatus · Water: Saltwater
Size: up to 104 cm
The Atlantic scombrops is a scombropid commonly caught by anglers at depths between 200 and 610 m. Maximum length is about 104 cm fork length. It is a gamefish. Fishing vulnerability is high at 64 of 100 and resilience low; no IUCN assessment is recorded for it.
The body is oblong and laterally compressed, with large eyes and a large mouth that ends beneath the centreline of the eye. The upper jaw is not protrusible and carries a sizeable additional bone over its posterior end, enlarged at the rear and much exposed even when the mouth is closed, while the mouth itself is armed with large, well-separated teeth shaped like compressed canines, set in one or two rows along the sides of the roof of the mouth with a patch of smaller teeth in the middle. The margin of the preoperculum is smooth and the rear of the gill cover bears two flattened points. The two dorsal fins are high and obviously separate, the first with seven weak spines and the second with a single weak spine and fourteen soft rays, the anal fin has three weak spines and twelve soft rays, the caudal fin is forked and the pectoral fins are short, about half the length of the head. Adults are predominantly black and juveniles silvery. It occurs over rocky bottoms and is benthic or near-benthic, feeding on crustaceans, cephalopods and other fishes, and it lays pelagic eggs with pelagic larvae. It has been recorded mainly from the Straits of Florida and the western Bahamas, with a wide distribution through the tropical western Atlantic.
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