The Anchovies
BODY elongate, more or less compressed, covered with thin, cycloid scales; head compressed; mouth very large, more or less oblique, usually overlapped by the compressed, pointed, pig-like snout; gape very wide, the maxillary long and slender, reaching far beyond the eye, in some species even beyond the head; premaxillaries not protractile, very small and firmly joined to the maxillaries; teeth usually small, sometimes obsolete, usually fine and even, in a single row in each jaw; canines sometimes present; eye large, well forward, no adipose eyelid; opercles thin and membranaceous; gillrakers long and slender; gill-membranes separate or joined, free from the isthmus; pseudobranchiae present; no lateral line; belly rounded or weakly serrate.