The Atlantic horse mackerel, Trachurus trachurus is a species of mackerel

Mackerel

Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of fish, mostly, but not exclusively, from the family Scombridae. They may be found in all tropical and temperate seas. Most live offshore in the oceanic environment but a few, like the Spanish mackerel , enter bays and can be...

 in the family Carangidae

Carangidae

Carangidae is a family of fish which includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, and scads.They are marine fish found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans...

. It gets its common name from the legend that other smaller species of fish could ride on the back of it over great distances. Other common names include common scad, maasbanker, pollock, scad, saurel, rough scad.

The Atlantic horse mackerel can be found in the north-eastern Atlantic from Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 to Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, including the Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

 islands, and also in the Mediterranean and, rarely, in the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

.

It congregates in large schools in coastal waters, where it feeds on crustacean

Crustacean

Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

s, squid, and other fishes. There are two main populations: the west stock which spawn in the eastern Atlantic off the coasts of western Europe, and the north stock which spawn in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

.

This mackerel is edible and can be smoked, fried, salted and baked etc. It is an important commercial fish.

Ecology and distribution

This species occurs as a pelagic schooling fish. An example prominent schooling occurrence is in the Sea of the Hebrides

Sea of the Hebrides

The Sea of the Hebrides is a portion of the North Atlantic Ocean, located off the coast of western Scotland, separating the mainland and the northern Inner Hebrides islands from the southern Outer Hebrides islands...

, a place where the Atlantic herring is also found as a pelagic schooling fish. (C.Michael Hogan. 2011)