Mojarra
Encyclopedia
The mojarras are a family, Gerreidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes
. It has seven genera
.
Mojarras are a common prey and bait fish in many parts of the Caribbean including the South America
n Coast and Caribbean
islands. These species tend to be difficult to identify in the field and often require microscopic examination. Most species exhibit a schooling behavior and tend to exploit the shallow water refugia associated with coastal areas presumably to avoid large-bodied predators.
Mojarra is also commonly used in Latin American countries as a name for various species of the Cichlid
family including tilapia
.
Perciformes
The Perciformes, also called the Percomorphi or Acanthopteri, is one of the largest orders of vertebrates, containing about 40% of all bony fish. Perciformes means perch-like. They belong to the class of ray-finned fish and comprise over 7,000 species found in almost all aquatic environments...
. It has seven genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
.
Mojarras are a common prey and bait fish in many parts of the Caribbean including the South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n Coast and Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
islands. These species tend to be difficult to identify in the field and often require microscopic examination. Most species exhibit a schooling behavior and tend to exploit the shallow water refugia associated with coastal areas presumably to avoid large-bodied predators.
Mojarra is also commonly used in Latin American countries as a name for various species of the Cichlid
Cichlid
Cichlids are fishes from the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes. Cichlids are members of a group known as the Labroidei along with the wrasses , damselfish , and surfperches . This family is both large and diverse. At least 1,300 species have been scientifically described, making it one of...
family including tilapia
Tilapia
Tilapia , is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the tilapiine cichlid tribe. Tilapia inhabit a variety of fresh water habitats, including shallow streams, ponds, rivers and lakes. Historically, they have been of major importance in artisan fishing in Africa and the...
.
Genera
- Diapterus Ranzani, 1842 (4 species)
- Eucinostomus Baird and Girard in Baird, 1855 (11 species)
- Eugerres Jordan and Evermann, 1927 (7 species)
- Gerres Quoy and Gaimard, 1824 (26 species)
- Parequula Steindachner, 1879 (monotypic)
- Pentaprion Bleeker, 1850 (monotypic)
- Ulaema Jordan and Evermann in Jordan, 1895