European Pilchard

The European pilchard, commonly sold as sardine, is a small, schooling herring relative of the northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea, typically 15 to 25 centimeters long with an olive-green back, golden flanks, and silvery belly. It forms large migratory schools that feed mainly at night on copepods and other zooplankton near the surface, while juveniles school and feed by day in shallower water. Ranging from Iceland and Scandinavia south to West Africa, it is one of the most heavily fished small pelagic species in the world, with Spain, Portugal, and Morocco together landing the bulk of the catch.