Atlantic Spadefish

• The juveniles are black and float on their side at the surface close inshore, mimicking a dead leaf carried on the current with astonishing accuracy.
• The adults form schools of hundreds that circle slowly above wrecks, a classic sight of Caribbean diving.
• Juveniles mimic a dead leaf: they are black, they let the current carry them along on their side in shallow water, and so they pass unnoticed among floating plant debris.
• Adults, by contrast, are silvery with dark vertical bands and form dense schools around wrecks and structures.
• Its body is almost circular and strongly compressed, with the dorsal and anal fins drawn out into points, which gives it the disc-like silhouette behind its name.
• It feeds mainly on benthic invertebrates, jellyfish and small crustaceans, and it has been seen picking parasites off other fish.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat and environment

Reefs, wrecks, mangroves and estuaries of the western Atlantic

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaetodipterus_faber