Herrings And Anchovies (Clupeiformes)

This group gathers Fish subcategory members belonging to the order Clupeiformes, small to medium-sized schooling fish that form some of the largest animal aggregations on Earth and sit near the base of many marine food webs, feeding on plankton and in turn feeding a wide range of larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. It spans the herring, whose historic North Atlantic fisheries shaped the economies of entire coastal regions for centuries, the European pilchard, a close sardine relative, and the European anchovy, a small, oily schooling fish long used across the Mediterranean for fermented sauces and preserved fillets. Every member of this group swims in dense, coordinated schools as a primary defense against predation.