Schoolmaster snapper

The schoolmaster snapper, scientifically named Lutjanus apodus, is a marine ray-finned fish in the snapper family. It lives in the western Atlantic Ocean and is commonly caught for food.

Taxonomy

German naturalist Johann Julius Walbaum first described this species in 1792, calling it Perca apoda based on an illustration from the Bahamas. Because the drawing left out the fish's pectoral fins, Walbaum gave it the species name apoda, meaning "footless."

Description

This snapper has a sturdy, slightly flattened body with a long, pointed snout and a large mouth. One pair of upper canine teeth is noticeably bigger than the lower jaw's back teeth, visible even when the mouth is shut. The vomerine teeth form a chevron or crescent shape, with a line of similar teeth extending backward from the middle.

The preoperculum has a weak notch and knob. The upper jaw can protrude and is mostly hidden by the cheek bone when closed; both nostrils are simple openings. The continuous dorsal fin has a slight notch between its spiny and soft-rayed sections, with 10 spines and 14 soft rays. The rounded anal fin has 3 spines and 8 soft rays.

Scale rows on the back run parallel to the lateral line. The tail fin is slightly forked or straight across. The pectoral fins are longer than the distance from the snout tip to the rear edge of the preopercle, reaching the anus.

Color ranges from olive gray to brownish on the upper back and sides, with yellow to reddish tones around the head. The lower sides and belly are lighter, and there is no dark spot below the front of the soft dorsal fin. Eight narrow, light vertical bars appear on the sides, though they may fade or vanish in large adults. A solid or broken blue line runs under the eye, sometimes disappearing with age.

From the upper jaw to the fleshy opercle tip, this line often breaks into dashes and spots. The fins and tail are bright yellow, yellow-green, or pale orange, and the snout has blue stripes. The fish can reach a fork length of 79.1 cm (31.1 in), though 35 cm (14 in) is more common, and the heaviest recorded weight is 10.8 kg (24 lb).

Distribution

The schoolmaster snapper lives in the western Atlantic, from Bermuda and the southeastern U.S. coast (Cape Canaveral, Florida, south to the Bahamas), into the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Keys north to Tampa, then west along the Gulf coast to the Yucatán Peninsula and northwestern Cuba.