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California Anchovy
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This species reaches a length of 7 inches and occurs on our Pacific Coast from south Alaska to Lower California. It is extremely abundant, swimming in large schools. It is one of the largest of the anchovies and the most valuable food-species. The flesh is rich and oily, comparatively dark, and easily torn, as in the sardines.
Head 3 1/2; depth 5 1/2; D. 14; A. 22; Br. 14; scales 40; vertebrae 45. Body spindle-shaped, form resembling that of a sardine, little compressed, rounded above, slightly carinated below, but not serrated; head long, anteriorly compressed, the snout pointed and protruding; head nearly twice as long as deep; eye large, very near the tip of the snout; maxillary extending beyond root of mandible; small teeth on jaws; opercle deeper than long, placed obliquely; gillrakers much longer than eye. Colour, bluish above, silvery on side and below, not translucent; no silvery lateral band.
The 2 species of Cetengraulis (C. mysticetus and C. edentulus) and the one each of Pterengraulis (P. atherinoides) and Lycengraulis (L. grossidens) are small tropical fishes of little value.