---
title: Torpedo Scad (Megalaspis cordyla)
scientific_name: Megalaspis cordyla
common_name: Torpedo Scad
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-11T20:17:19.832Z
updated: 2026-08-13T12:14:23.108Z
tags: Torpedo Scad, Megalaspis cordyla, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/torpedo-scad
---

# Torpedo Scad (*Megalaspis cordyla*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 80 cm
- **Weight:** 4 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-100 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open coastal water, in fast schools
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- torpedo body with a very narrow tail stalk armored in hard scutes
- row of small separate finlets behind the dorsal and anal fins
- large eye with a well-developed fatty eyelid, dark spot on the gill cover
- length up to 80 cm

A hard, fast jack to 80 cm (31 in) with a tail stalk so narrow it looks pinched, armored along its whole length with a row of bony scutes, and a set of small separate finlets running back to the tail.

That combination is a speed package assembled twice. Tunas have the same finlets and the same narrow stalk for the same reason - to smooth the water rolling off the fins and to transmit force from a body that is all muscle - and the scad arrived at it independently. The fatty eyelid covering most of the eye is the third piece: it streamlines the head at the cost of peripheral vision.

It hunts small schooling fish in fast-moving groups in open coastal water, and it is caught in enormous quantities across the Indian Ocean, where it is one of the staple market fish.

Ciguatera has been reported from large individuals, unusual for a pelagic fish and a reminder that the toxin travels further up and out from the reef than most people assume.

## Also known as

- **English:** torpedo scad, finletted mackerel scad, Cordyla Scad
- **Arabic:** Diayooh, Teeti
- **French:** Carangue à bouclier, Comète torpille
- **Spanish:** Macarela Torpedo
- **Portuguese:** Carapau-torpedo
- **Czech:** kranas torpédovitý
- **Japanese:** オニアジ, Oniaji
- **Chinese:** 大甲鰺, 鉛灰裸胸鰺
- **Russian:** Скумбриевидная ставрида
- **DA:** Torpedo-hestemakrel
- **KAN:** ಗೊಂಡ್ಲು
- **TAM:** தேங்கா பாரை, வென்னை பாரை, Parai
- **TH:** ปลาแข้งไก่

## Scientific synonyms

- *Caranx rottleri* (Bloch, 1793)
- *Citula plumbea* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Magalaspis cordyla* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Megalapsis cordyla* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Megalaspis cordylaa* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Scomber cordyla* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Scomber rottleri* Bloch, 1793

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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