Narrow-barred Spanish mackerel fishing: the predator that came through the Suez Canal

October 5, 2026

In 1935, off the coast of what was then Mandatory Palestine, a fish was caught that did not belong there: a mackerel from the Red Sea. That is what the English and the Hebrew Wikipedia say. It had come through the Suez Canal. The Hebrew Wikipedia traces its route: 1965 in Lebanon, 1981 in Turkey, 1997 in Egypt and Tunisia. Today, according to the English Wikipedia, it is very common in the eastern Levant and an important target of the fishery there. This article is about the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, *Scomberomorus commerson* — German Torpedo-Makrele, French thazard rayé, Italian maccarello reale, Dutch Indische koningsmakreel, Japanese ヨコシマサワラ (yokoshima-sawara), on the Persian Gulf kanaad, in Israel palamida.

A “stupid mackerel”, named after a circumnavigator

The narrow-barred Spanish mackerel belongs to the family of mackerels and tunas (Scombridae). FishBase derives the genus name *Scomberomorus* from the Latin scomber, mackerel, and the Greek moros — stupid, simple-minded. The species epithet honours Philibert Commerson (1727–1773), whom FishBase introduces as “physician, botanist and naturalist of the King”. It was described by Étienne de Lacépède in 1800 as “Scombre Commerson” (the French Wikipedia). According to the French Wikipedia, it has the largest range of all species in its genus. The Hebrew Wikipedia calls it the largest of all mackerels, the English one at least the largest of the Australian mackerels.

How to recognise it

The body is elongated and strongly compressed laterally, oval in cross-section (FishBase). The mouth is large: the upper jaw reaches the rear edge of the eye or slightly beyond, the teeth are strong and flattened (FishBase), according to the Italian Wikipedia triangular, according to the German one slightly curved backwards. The first gill arch carries only 1 to 8 gill rakers — for the French Wikipedia the feature by which the species is recognised. There are two dorsal fins: the first with 15 to 18 spines, the second with 15 to 20 soft rays, followed by 8 to 11 finlets; the anal fin has 16 to 21 soft rays, followed by 7 to 12 finlets (FishBase). The most striking feature is the lateral line: below the end of the second dorsal fin it bends abruptly downwards (FishBase). According to the German and the Russian Wikipedia, a swim bladder is something it does not have.

The colour: the back shimmers blue-grey, the flanks are silvery with a bluish sheen and bear many narrow, wavy, vertical bars (FishBase) — hence the English addition narrow-barred. The number of bars grows with the fish: from about 20 in a 40 cm fish to as many as 65 at 150 cm (FishBase). Juveniles often bear oval spots instead of bars (FishBase, the German and the Italian Wikipedia); according to the French Wikipedia, the front part of their first dorsal fin is also jet black.

Size: FishBase gives 240 cm fork length as the maximum and 120 cm as the common length; the heaviest published weight is 70 kg. According to FishBase, it reaches sexual maturity at around 75 cm (55 to 82 cm). According to the English Wikipedia, in Australia the females are larger than the males. In Penghu (Taiwan), where according to the English Wikipedia it is called “white gold”, a fish of 34 kg sold for more than 3,000 dollars in 2022.

Where it lives and what it eats

Distribution: according to FishBase, in the Indo-Pacific — from the Red Sea and South Africa to Southeast Asia, north to China and Japan, south to southeastern Australia and east to Fiji —, plus in the Atlantic at St Helena. It reached the Mediterranean as a Lessepsian migrant through the Suez Canal (FishBase). According to the Italian Wikipedia, it has established itself there only along the southeastern coasts, from southern Turkey to Libya, where it is very common; from the Aegean coast of Turkey and from Tunisia there are only isolated catches.
Habitat: a fish of the coast and the shelf — FishBase describes it from the edge of the continental shelf into shallow coastal waters, often of low salinity and high turbidity, as well as on drop-offs, reefs and in lagoons. According to the Italian Wikipedia, it is rarely met in the open sea, but hunts in estuaries too. According to FishBase, it undertakes long migrations along the coast, but there also seem to be resident populations.
Depth: FishBase gives 10 to 70 metres.
Diet: mainly small fishes — anchovies, herring-like fishes and jacks —, plus squid and penaeid shrimps (FishBase). FishBase puts it at trophic level 4.5. According to the French and the Russian Wikipedia, it feeds by day and by night; the Arabic one writes mostly by day, rarely at night.
How it hunts: according to FishBase, mostly alone, often in shallow water along sloping coasts. The Hebrew Wikipedia describes it as a greedy, opportunistic predator that chases its prey in open water, on reefs and close to shore and cuts it up effortlessly with its sharp teeth.
Lodgers: According to the English Wikipedia, the body cavity often holds the cysts of the larvae of a tapeworm, *Callitetrarhynchus gracilis*, in large numbers.

Spawning on the reef edge

The eggs and larvae drift in open water (FishBase). According to the English Wikipedia, the eggs carry a large oil droplet that keeps them in the warm, oxygen-rich surface water. Spawning takes place on the slopes and edges of reefs, where, according to FishBase, the fish gather at specific sites — according to the Italian Wikipedia at sites they return to every year. In Australian waters, according to FishBase, each female spawns several times per season, at intervals of 2 to 6 days. How long the season lasts depends on the water temperature; the French Wikipedia gives October to July in East Africa, December to February off Madagascar and July to December in Papua New Guinea. According to the English Wikipedia, many fisheries specifically target the pre-spawning feeding aggregations. The juveniles then move into coastal waters and estuaries.

How it is caught — and what you should know

FishBase lists it as a game fish and as highly commercial; according to FishBase, its price falls in the “very high” category. According to the English Wikipedia, recreational anglers catch it from boats by trolling or drifting, and also from boats, piers, jetties and beaches with cast spoons and jigs and with live baitfish. The Hebrew Wikipedia describes three methods: trolling a baitfish, an imitation or a colourful lure a few dozen metres behind the slowly moving boat; casting a lure from the shore; or lifting a sinking lure off the bottom and letting it drop with a jerk. All three, the Wikipedia says, imitate an injured fish and provoke it to attack. In Israel, according to the Hebrew Wikipedia, it is very popular with recreational anglers; the Dutch one, by contrast, writes that it is little pursued by anglers.

⚠️ What follows is an inference from its biology, not a sourced statement: a predator that hunts close to the coast over 10 to 70 metres, does not shy away from turbid water and estuaries, follows schools of small fish and strikes with sharp teeth is a fish for edges and drop-offs off the coast, for fast-retrieved lures — and for a bite-proof leader. In the Mediterranean, the realistic waters are where the sources often place it: on the southeastern coast from southern Turkey to Libya, especially off Israel and Lebanon. Further west it is, as things stand, a chance catch.

A warning: according to FishBase, a fat-soluble toxin similar to ciguatoxin was found in its flesh, in fish from the east coast of Queensland (Australia). According to the French Wikipedia, at least 78 toxic fish from there caused 217 cases of poisoning. Ciguatera toxin comes from tropical reef algae, accumulates in predatory fish and is not destroyed by cooking. Otherwise, according to the Russian Wikipedia, the flesh is considered white and of high quality; in Tainan (Taiwan), according to the English Wikipedia, it is made into a thick soup, tutuo yugeng, and in Israel, according to the Hebrew Wikipedia, palamida is common in fish restaurants and home cooking.

And the stock? The IUCN classifies it as “Near Threatened” — potentially threatened (FishBase: assessed on 10 November 2022). According to the Italian Wikipedia, it is overfished in large parts of its range, most heavily in the western Indian Ocean, especially off Oman; in Australia, stocks have reportedly shrunk by 30%. According to the English Wikipedia, the Queensland government cut the commercial catch quota from 578 to 165 tonnes in July 2023; recreational anglers there may keep one fish per person. FishBase rates its vulnerability to fishing as “moderate to high” (52 out of 100) and to climate change as “high to very high” (75 out of 100). In Israel, according to the Hebrew Wikipedia, catching it under 30 cm and during the spawning season is prohibited. Minimum sizes, bag limits and closed seasons are set by each country — check them locally.

Five contradictions, left open

How big? FishBase, the Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Finnish and Russian Wikipedia: at most 240 cm. The French one: at most 220 cm. The English and the Hebrew one: around 2 m. On weight they all agree, 70 kg. On the common size they do not: FishBase gives 120 cm, the Italian Wikipedia “normally not over 120 cm”, the French and the Russian one around 90 cm.
How deep? FishBase, the German, Dutch and Finnish Wikipedia: 10 to 70 metres. The Russian one: down to 200 metres. The Arabic one: from the surface down to 180 metres.
When sexually mature? FishBase: at around 75 cm (55 to 82 cm). The French and the Russian Wikipedia: males at 65, females at 70 cm. The Italian one: at 65 cm and two years. The English and the Hebrew one: females at about 80 cm and around two years.
How old? FishBase gives the maximum reported age as 22 years, as does the Russian Wikipedia. In the section on resilience, however, the same FishBase page works with a maximum age of 14 years.
Lone hunter or school? FishBase: hunts mostly alone. The Italian Wikipedia: a gregarious fish in small schools that only break up to hunt. The German one: a group fish, but also found singly. The Russian one: a schooling fish. The Finnish one: hunts in small schools.

Six names that lead to the wrong fish

“Royal mackerel” and “king mackerel”. The Dutch Wikipedia calls it Indische koningsmakreel, the Italian one maccarello reale, the Russian one, among others, полосатая королевская макрель (striped king mackerel), and in South Africa, according to the English Wikipedia, it is called king mackerel. The king mackerel of the Atlantic, however, is a different species, *Scomberomorus cavalla*. How easily they are confused is shown by the Finnish Wikipedia: its FishBase link leads to the wrong species, to *S. cavalla*.
“Spanish mackerel”. In Australia, according to the English Wikipedia, Spanish mackerel is exactly this fish. In the USA, the name usually means a different, smaller relative on the Atlantic coast. If you search English sources, look for the addition narrow-barred or the scientific name.
“Palamida” and “palamut”. In Israel, according to the Hebrew Wikipedia, it is called פלמידה לבנה (palamida levana, “white palamida”) or simply palamida; in Turkey, according to the English Wikipedia, ceylan palamutu, while GBIF lists palamut kolyozu. In the rest of the Mediterranean, however, palamida and palamut mean the bonito — which is covered by a separate group in this series.
“Thazard”, “tazard” and “kingfish”. In French it is called thazard rayé (the FAO standard name, according to the French Wikipedia), on Mauritius tazard or bécune blanche, in New Caledonia gros prêtre, and locally in English kingfish. But thazard-bâtard is the wahoo, and in French bécune otherwise refers to the barracudas — both are separate groups in this series.
ヨコシマサワラ and カマスサワラ. The Japanese name ヨコシマサワラ (yokoshima-sawara) is in the GBIF name list. Easy to mix up: カマスサワラ (kamasu-sawara) is a completely different fish, the wahoo. And Japan’s ordinary sawara is yet another relative from the same genus.
Kanaad, dirak, abu sinn. In Arabic it has many names: on the Persian Gulf, according to the English Wikipedia, it is called kanaad (كنعد), in Egypt on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea dirak (ديرك), in Lebanon abu sinn (ابو سن) or ghazal (غزال), in Libya yamaneyah. An Arabic-speaking skipper may therefore know it by a name that is in no dictionary. And the German name Torpedo-Makrele? It comes from the German Wikipedia — the GBIF name list has not a single German name.

That leaves the question every article in this series starts with: when. Depth, diet and hunting style are covered above, and they are fixed. What changes every day is everything else — and that is exactly where it is decided whether a day on the water is worth it. That is what StrikeAhead calculates: it takes the conditions on your water and tells you when the trip is worth it. And because you don’t know the edges off an unfamiliar coast from day one, StrikeAhead Pathfinder tells you who to go out with: curated guides and skippers, personally vetted before listing — licence and insurance —, with verified catches instead of promo photos, no paid ranking and, for you as an angler, no booking fee.

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