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Lookdown; Horsehead
This is perhaps the most common and best known of the moonfishes. It is found on both coasts of tropical America, from Cape Cod to Brazil, and from Lower California to Peru. Southward it is very common on sandy shores, and is a delicious food-fish, reaching a weight of 2 pounds.
Anterior profile nearly straight from tip of snout to occiput; one or 2 of the dorsal spines very long and filamentous in the young, short in the adult; ventrals and anal variable. Colour, uniform silvery, resembling a sheet of mother-of-pearl in colour and texture.
GENUS CHLOROSCOMBRUS GIRARD
The Casabes
Body oblong-ovate, compressed, not elevated; abdomen prominent anteriorly, its curve being much greater than the curve of the back; occiput and thoracic region trenchant; caudal peduncle very narrow, the fin widely forked; scales small, smooth; lateral line arched in front, armed, or with few small plates; head nearly naked; mouth rather small, oblique, lower jaw scarcely projecting; upper jaw protractile; maxillary broad, emarginate behind. with a large supplemental bone; jaws, vomer and palatines with feeble teeth, mostly in single series; first dorsal of feeble spines, connected by membrane; second dorsal and anal long and low, similar, much longer than the short abdomen; anal spines strong; ventrals small; pectoral falcate; gillrakers long; no finlets. Species, 2 or 3, all American, and of little value as food.
Chloroscombrus orqueta, the xurel de castilla of the Mexicans, has the chord of the curved part of the lateral line considerably longer than the head, and the colour is dusky. This species is found from Lower California to Panama, at which latter place it is rather common. It is of little value for food.