Anchovies
anchovies_g293
Guyana anchovy
Anchoviella guianensis
About
Most anchovies belong to the sea. This one does not. The Guyana anchovy lives in estuaries and rivers, and it puts up with only very slight salt. It is a small fish, usually about 6 cm long and reaching 11.3 cm at most, so you will notice the flash of a shoal long before you make out a single fish.
Also known as: sardine, striped anchovy, striped anchovy
- Length
- 6 cm · max 11.3 cm
How to tell it apart
Anchovies are a blur of look-alikes, and at this size you will not settle one by fin counts in the water. Two things help. First, where you are: this fish sits in fresh and almost fresh water, well up into rivers, not out on the coast. Second, the taper of that flank stripe. Follow it back and see whether it swells over the anal fin instead of holding an even width the whole way.
Appearance
The body is slim and a little flattened from side to side. The snout is short, only a bit longer than half the width of the eye, and the upper jaw ends in a blunt tip. A silver stripe runs the length of the flank. It is not the same width all the way: it broadens towards the back, and is at its widest above the base of the anal fin, the fin on the underside near the tail. That anal fin is short, and it starts just behind the end of the dorsal fin on the back.
Log it in Into the Blue
Describe what you saw and we name it, then keep every species you find in your Oceandex.
