Slate is a fish of the phylum Chordata. The body is laterally compressed and slightly extended. The mouth is bright yellow; the outer teeth of the upper jaw are canine-like, especially the two largest at the front end. The back of the body is silver gray-brown, and the abdomen is gray. The dorsal fin is grayish black, with several rows of small round scales at the base of the soft bar, accounting for 1/3 of the height of the soft bar.

The upper edge of the dorsal fin spine is black, and there is a longitudinal black stripe in the center of the fin bar.

The pectoral fins have a clear spot above the axil. The remaining fins are grayish black. The body shape of the rice fish is flattened on both sides and extended backward, and the dorsum and abdomen are shallowly curved.

Slate fish is produced in Zhoushan Ocean in the East China Sea. In the lunar calendar June-August for the fishing season, and in July for the peak season, every big tide flood, fishing boats competing sea work, morning and evening, catching a lot, is one of the Ningbo sea fishing specialties.

Expanded Information

Slate fish like to inhabit in the waters with high turbidity. It can make sounds with its swim bladder and is fierce in nature. It sinks during the day and floats at night; it swims from deep water to the near shore for reproductive migration from April to May every year. Carnivorous, with small fish and small benthic invertebrates as the main.

Slatefish eyes are larger, located in the front half of the head on the upper side, the eye circle is large, the eye diameter is slightly smaller than the length of the muzzle, the eye membrane is highly transparent, red and bright, the eye interval is equal to or greater than the eye diameter. The rice fish has 2 slightly rounded convex nostrils, the anterior nostrils are small and round; the posterior nostrils are large, elongated, and immediately adjacent to the eyes.

It belongs to the warm temperate demersal marine fish, inhabiting in the water depth of 15-70 meters, the substrate is mud or muddy sand sea area, sinking during the day, floating at night, preferring to small scattered activities, do not set up into a large group. Rice fish is a small regional migratory fish, and the fish group is relatively concentrated during the spawning season. Rice fish are predatory fish, feeding on small fish, guanapods and decapods.