European barracuda

Photo: Christian Amador Da Silva · © all rights reserved

The European barracuda is a slender, silvery predator that aggregates in dense shoals above seamounts and rocky pinnacles throughout the Mediterranean. Schools can number in the thousands and hover almost motionless in the current, synchronising turns with mechanical precision. They feed opportunistically on sardines, anchovies, and juvenile bream, and are important mid-level predators linking small pelagic prey to larger apex species.