Wahoo Fish

While a member of the Scombridae family, the wahoo fish is neither a tuna nor a mackerel nor a bonito. Yet, this splendid blue and silver fish is prized both for its ability to put up a fight when it’s hooked and for the sweet taste of its firm, white flesh, which can be a little pricey at the fish store. Though it can be caught in great numbers through commercial fishing, its prodigious reproductive rate probably keeps the popular wahoo fish off the endangered list.

Five Amazing Facts About the Wahoo Fish

• One of the wahoo’s other names, ono, is Hawaiian for “delicious,” and the wahoo is valued for the amazing taste of its meat. Other names include “hoo”.
• Scientists are studying populations of wahoo fish and how they are related to wahoo populations from other parts of the world.
• Wahoos often harbor the giant stomach worm, but it doesn’t seem to bother them or affect the taste, flavor, or healthfulness of their meat.
• Unlike some other Scombridae fish, wahoo fish are not warm-blooded.
• Unusually for a fish, both of the wahoo’s jaws are movable.

Classification and Scientific Name

The scientific name of the wahoo fish is Acanthocybium solandri. Acanthocybium comes from akantha, the Greek word for “thorn”, and kybion, the Greek word for “tuna.” Solandri comes from Daniel Carl Solander, who was a pupil of the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus. There is only one species, though there are slight differences between wahoos in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans.

Evolution

The earliest vertebrates are believed to be the ancestors of hagfish, with their fossils dating from around 550 million years ago. The first fossils of cartilaginous fish with jaws resembling sharks appeared in the fossil record around 450 million years ago. They were followed by the bony fish around 50 million years later. Bony fish eventually evolved into the most varied and prominent fish group, including the wahoo.

Appearance

The wahoo is a fish of striking looks, with a long, somewhat compressed, torpedo-shaped body. Its scales are tiny, its sides silver with blue stripes, and its back an iridescent blue. These brilliant colors fade soon after the fish’s death. It has a pointed head and a long, beaky snout with small but very sharp teeth. A large wahoo fish can be over 8 feet long and weigh over 180 pounds, but most wahoos are smaller than this. It has two dorsal fins that aren’t well separated. The first has 24 to 26 spines, while the second one has nine. The tail is somewhat half-moon-shaped, and the stem of the tail is lined with small, attractive finlets.

Wahoo Fish vs. Barracuda

It can be easy to mistake a wahoo for a barracuda, as both have similar coloration and can grow to about the same size. Yet the barracuda’s body is more snakelike, its scales are large, and its long jaws have an underbite. Most of all, its teeth are much larger and more dagger-like than the teeth of the wahoo. Its dorsal fins are separate, and it lacks the finlets on the stem of the tail that belong to the wahoo fish. Interestingly, the wahoo is called the barracuda on the British island of St. Helena, though the two fish aren’t related.

Distribution, Population, and Habitat

The wahoo fish is found in the warmer areas of the world’s oceans. It’s found somewhere in the middle of the water column, avoiding the depths of the ocean and the shoreline. It appears to be an abundant fish, and biologists believe that its population is stable and its conservation status is the Least Concern.

Predators and Prey

What Does the Wahoo Eat?

Though the wahoo is not the largest of the predatory fish, it is fierce and takes smaller fish such as mahi-mahi, jacks, flying fish, porcupine fish, and even smaller versions of its cousin, the tuna. It also eats squid and octopuses.

What Eats the Wahoo?

As for predators, it is preyed upon by sharks and rays, including the silver-tip shark of the Indo-Pacific.

Reproduction and Lifespan

The reproduction of scombroids is surprisingly mysterious, but scientists do know that their spawning season is long, and there is no one time when all the fish will start to spawn. A female wahoo can release millions of eggs during a season, and they are fertilized externally by the male. After that, the parents take no more care of their young. After the larvae hatch, they grow very quickly and are ready to reproduce when they are about a year old. The fish’s reproductive and growth rate might be what keeps it from being overfished, but it may come with a price. The wahoo fish is not a long-lived species, and its lifespan is only about six years or just a little longer.

Fishing and Cooking

The speed and ferocity of the wahoo make it a sought-after game fish. The fish is best caught through trolling and luring with natural bait such as mullet. Besides being a game fish, the wahoo is highly rated as a comestible. The flavor of its flesh is delectable without being oily or gamy, as can sometimes be seen in the mackerel. Recipes for preparing wahoo have the fish broiled, pan-fried, or prepared in several other ways. However, as a predator of smaller fish, the wahoo might be at risk for high mercury levels as well as ciguatera toxicity.

Population

Biologists don’t know the exact number of the wahoo population, but the fish appears to be abundant and is not threatened by overfishing.