Crevalle Jack - Distribution

Distribution

The crevalle jack inhabits the tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic Ocean, ranging extensively along both the eastern American coastline and the western African and European coastlines. In the western Atlantic, the southernmost record comes from Uruguay, with the species ranging north along the Central American coastline, and throughout the Caribbean and many of the numerous archipelagos within. The species is found throughout the Greater Antilles, however it is absent from the leeward Lesser Antilles, with its distribution being patchy throughout other Caribbean archipelagos. From the Gulf of Mexico, its distribution extends north along the U.S. coast and as far north as Nova Scotia in Canada, also taking in several northwest Atlantic islands. The crevalle jack is also known from Saint Helena Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

In the eastern Atlantic, the southernmost record comes from Angola, with the species distributed north along the west African coastline up to West Sahara and Morocco, with its distribution also including much of the Mediterranean Sea. In the Mediterranean, its range extends as far east as Libya in the south and Turkey in the north, and includes most of the northern Mediterranean, including Greece, Italy and Spain. The species' northernmost record in the eastern Atlantic comes from Portugal, with the species also known to inhabit many of the northeastern Atlantic islands, including Cape Verde, Madeira Island, and the Canary Islands.

Many older publications list the species range as from the eastern Pacific, which now is known to represent the Pacific crevalle jack and is considered a distinct species. There are also often mentions of the species erroneously having circumtropical and Indian Ocean distributions, with these records probably attributable to similar Indo-Pacific species, namely the blacktip trevally and giant trevally. The species distribution overlaps that of the similar longfin crevalle jack in the eastern Atlantic, with careful identification needed to distinguish the two. Within the Atlantic, confusion with both longfin crevalle jack and horse-eye jack, Caranx latus, have also led to erroneous records being made, with Smith-Vaniz and Carpenter suggesting this occurred in the Mediterranean, and the species may actually be absent from waters north of Mauritania.