---
title: Herring Scad (Alepes vari)
scientific_name: Alepes vari
common_name: Herring Scad
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-10T16:47:26.747Z
updated: 2026-09-10T22:28:16.941Z
tags: Herring Scad, Alepes vari, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/herring-scad
---

# Herring Scad (*Alepes vari*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 61 cm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow coastal water and clear inner reef, in dense schools near the surface
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silvery blue body with a dusky, not yellow, tail fin
- large for a scad - to 61 cm, twice the size the name suggests
- in dense schools well above the bottom, often right at the surface
- on clear inner reef and shallow coastal water rather than out in the blue

This is the largest scad there is, and the name works against it. A scad is a small fish in most people's heads; this one reaches 61 cm (24 in), which is bigger than several of the trevallies on the same page, and it still feeds mainly on plankton - shrimps, copepods and decapods, with small fish taken alongside.

It is also in the wrong place for a jack. Instead of patrolling the drop-off it holds in dense schools over clear inner reef, high above the bottom and often right at the surface, in water ten meters deep or less. A school of them overhead reads as silver in the light rather than as individual fish.

What separates it from the other scad here is the tail. The shrimp scad carries a yellow one; this one is dusky, against a silvery blue body.

That is worth having, because the two are otherwise the same fish at a glance and the books do not help much: both are silver, both are compressed, both school, and the size difference only shows once the fish is fully grown. Tail first, then everything else.

## Also known as

- **English:** herring scad, Trevally Scad
- **Arabic:** نيزكة مُرَنكة, Janees
- **French:** Selar harengule, Sélar harengule
- **Spanish:** Jurel Arenque
- **Portuguese:** Xaréu-arisco
- **Czech:** kranas sleďovitý
- **Japanese:** マブタシマアジ, Mabutashimaaji
- **Chinese:** 大尾葉鰺, 大尾鰺, 范氏副葉鰺
- **Russian:** Сельдевый алеп
- **TGL:** Talakitok
- **TH:** ปลาสีกุนรากชาย

## Scientific synonyms

- *Alepes glabra* Fowler, 1904
- *Alepes macrurus* (Bleeker, 1851)
- *Caranx macrurus* (Bleeker, 1851)
- *Caranx vari* Cuvier, 1833
- *Selar macrurus* Bleeker, 1851

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/herring-scad)*
*Updated: September 10, 2026*