Bonefish Family
(Albulidae)

Bonefish Family, (Albulidae): The Albulidae or Bonefish Family are known in Mexico fishing waters as Macabíes or Zorros.

The bonefishes are of keen scientific interest because of their primitive nature and thus linked to studies of the evolutionary process.

The bonefishes are small to medium sized (to 31 inches) with elongated compressed bodies that have conical heads, snouts with overhanging small mouths that do not reach past the eye. They have fins without spines, one short dorsal fin and the pectoral fins are low on the body, the pelvic fins are under the abdomen and well behind the pectoral fins under the rear half of the dorsal base, the anal fins are short and well behind the dorsal fin and the tail is deeply forked.

Bonefish root into sand with their conical snout for their usual food of small clams, various worms, and crustaceans. These fishes are world renowned as hard-fighting gamefishes but have no food value.

Globally there are eight known bonefishes in two genera of which two species from one genera are found within the Mexican waters of the Pacific.

The bonefish get their name from the numerous fine bones found in their flesh.

The species found in Mexican waters are:

Eastern Pacific Bonefish, Albula esuncula.
Shafted Bonefish, Albula pacifica.

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