Horse mackerel is a vague vernacular term for a range of species of fish throughout the English-speaking world. It is commonly applied to pelagic fishes, especially of the Carangidae (jack mackerels and scads) family, most commonly those of the genera Trachurus or Caranx. Species known as "horse mackerel" in one English dialect or another include:
- Sarda australis, Australian bonito (Australia)
- Trachurus declivis, Greenback horse mackerel (Australia)
- Alectis indicus, Indian threadfish (Malaysia)
- Caranx hippos, Crevalle jack (Guyana, India)
- Megalaspis cordyla, torpedo scad (India)
- Selar crumenophthalmus, bigeye (India)
- Trachurus trachurus, Atlantic horse mackerel (United Kingdom, Ireland)
- Caranx crysos, blue runner (Guadaloupe, Martinique)
- Trachurus novaezelandiae, yellowtail horse mackerel (New Zealand)
- Trachurus capensis, cape horse mackerel (South Africa)
- various Scombridae, tuna
- various saurel of the Pacific coast of the Americas
- Naucrates ductor, pilot fish
Famous quotes containing the words horse and/or mackerel:
“I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try
Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove
A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love,”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)