---
title: Bigeye Scad (Selar crumenophthalmus)
scientific_name: Selar crumenophthalmus
common_name: Bigeye Scad
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-11T21:55:32.412Z
updated: 2026-08-13T19:40:56.273Z
tags: Bigeye Scad, Selar crumenophthalmus, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/bigeye-scad
---

# Bigeye Scad (*Selar crumenophthalmus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 70 cm
- **Depth:** 0-170 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Open water over reef and lagoon, in dense schools by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- slender silver fish with an eye far too large for its head
- dark spot on the edge of the gill cover
- scutes forming a keel along the rear half of the lateral line
- in tight schools that turn as one and hang almost motionless by day
- length up to 70 cm, most fish around 25 cm

A silver fish with an eye that takes up half its head, in a school that hangs in mid-water like a suspended cloud and turns as one animal. Up to 70 cm (28 in) in theory, around 25 in practice.

The eye is the whole design. This is a night feeder in a family of daytime hunters: after dark the schools break up and spread into open water to pick copepods and larvae out of the dark, one at a time, which needs light-gathering rather than speed. By day the fish reassemble and do nothing, which is when divers see them.

That is also why the schools are so tight. A fish that is not feeding has nothing to gain from spreading out and everything to gain from being one shape among thousands. Watch a jack make a pass and the school opens around it and closes behind, without a single fish leaving.

It is one of the most important small food fishes in the tropics, caught by the ton at night with lights - which works precisely because the eye that finds plankton in the dark also finds a lamp.

## Also known as

- **English:** bigeye scad, Big Eye Scad, Bigeye Scad Atulai
- **French:** sélar à grandes paupières, Chinchard à gros yeux, Maquereau gros veux
- **Spanish:** charrito ojón, Jurel de Ojo Grande, Sabalo de Ojo Grande
- **Portuguese:** Carapau Preto, Charro Preto, Chicharro Olho-grande
- **Japanese:** メアジ, Me-aji, Meaji
- **Russian:** большеглазая ставрида, Селар

## Scientific synonyms

- *Caranx blochii* Cuvier, 1833
- *Caranx crumenophtalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Caranx crumenophthalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Caranx daubentonii* Lacepède, 1801
- *Caranx macrophthalmus* Rüppell, 1830
- *Caranx mauritianus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Caranx plumieri* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Caranx torvus* Jenyns, 1841
- *Scomber balantiophthalmus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Scomber crumenophthalmus* Bloch, 1793
- *Scomber plumieri* Bloch, 1793
- *Selar crumenophtalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Selar crumenopthalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Selar crumenthalmops* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Trachiurops crumenophthalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Trachurops brachychirus* Gill, 1862
- *Trachurops crumenophthalmus* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Trachurops crumenophthalmus crockeri* Nichols, 1935
- *Trachurus crumenophthalmus* (Bloch, 1793)

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/bigeye-scad)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*