Needlescaled queenfish
(Scomberoides tol)
Image source: Mark Rosenstein | inaturalist.org
General data
The needlescaled queenfish (Scomberoides tol), also known as the slender queenfish, needleskin queenfish and slender leatherskin,[3] is a tropical game fish in family Carangidae.
Scomberoides tol is bluish-green to bluish-grey on the dorsal part of its body becoming silvery white on the ventral part. It has 5-8 vertically oval black spots along its flanks. The anterior 4-5 overlap the lateral line. The outer half of the lobe of the dorsal fin is a black while the anterior lobe of the anal fin is white. The flank spots are faint or absent in juvenile fishes. The body of this fish is strongly compressed, oblong and elliptical in shape with the dorsal and ventral profiles are similarly convex. In the adults the upper mandible reaches the rear margin of the pupil. The soft rays of posterior dorsal and anal fins are made up of semi-attached finlets.
They grow to a maximum recorded length of 60 centimetres (24 in).
Scomberoides tol is found in the Indo-West Pacific, its range extending from South Africa northwards to the Persian Gulf. encompassing the Red Sea and Socotra in the east. east into the western pacific as far as Tonga and the Marquesas. In the eastern part of its range it extends north to southern Japan and south as far as the Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia and Queensland in eastern Australia.
